Antoninianus of Gallienus, Rome c. 253 - 268

Curator: Looking at this object, I feel a strange weight of time, you know? It's an Antoninianus, a Roman coin of Emperor Gallienus, residing at the Harvard Art Museums. Editor: It looks...beaten. Like a tiny, bronze sea-weathered island. Curator: That texture speaks to its history, doesn't it? Think of the materials, the labor involved in minting this. The mines, the workshops, the distribution networks. Editor: I see it passed from hand to hand, a tangible link to an empire, but also just a daily object, used, lost, and found again, with all the stories it could tell. Curator: Absolutely. It represents the Roman economic system. Each coin, a unit of labor, a measure of value. It also blurs the lines between art, craft, and industrial production. Editor: Like a whisper of history that fits in the palm of your hand. Curator: Precisely, and studying how it was made and circulated can illuminate the economics of its era.