Coin of Isaac II late 12th to early 13th century

Editor: Here we have a silver coin of Isaac II. It’s incredible how the metal shows so much wear and tear. What can we read into the artistry and usage of this coin? Curator: Notice how the coin's material and form inherently served political and economic functions. Its value isn't just symbolic but tied to silver, a resource extracted, processed, and distributed. The imagery, likely propagandistic, was reproduced through repetitive labor, shaping a collective understanding of power and religious authority. Editor: So, it's less about the artistic skill and more about the coin's role in a larger system? Curator: Precisely. Consider the social context: who mined the silver, who minted the coin, and whose hands did it pass through? The coin embodies a whole network of production and consumption.