Did you guess that making medals and coins is a separate art form that originates in the country of Lida and Greece between the 8th and 7th centuries BC. is.?

Did you guess that making medals and coins is a separate art form that originates in the country of Lida and Greece between the 8th and 7th centuries BC. is.? Medal art - the art of making coins and medals, engraving stamps (matrices) for prints. There is also a technique for pouring out works of small sculptures (wax loss technology). In medal art, emblems, allegories, slogans, inscriptions, year of manufacture, portraits, ornaments, fish or birds, animal images are widely used. Traditionally, materials used for medallion art are metals and alloys, which preserve plasticity during the manufacturing process and the durability of the prints. It is gold, silver, copper and their alloys. There are isolated samples of commemorative medals such as antique, made in the Renaissance and baroque wood or bone. It is believed that the first coins arose in the country of Lida and Greece between the 8th and 7th centuries BC. The medieval art of Ancient Greece stood at the level of the best achievements of other plastic arts. The ancient Greek sources did not preserve the names of medalists of ancient times. There is only one exception - the coins and medals of Sicily, which have signatures with names of masters. Distribution of international contacts led to the appearance of coins with inscriptions in two languages. The very word "coin" does not come from Greece, but from ancient Rome. The peculiarity of the coins and medals of the Ancient Rome is the high relief and not always the correct circle of form. Coins also had different (yet non-standard) diameters (from 3 mm to 58 mm).  The crisis of medal art began in Greece at the beginning of 3 years BC. The turbulent years of the Roman Empire, its disintegration into the West and the East, barbaric wars, the emergence of new states did not contribute to the medal art. But here were the mints of Kyivska Rus at first. Therefore, the oldest coins of the princes Volodymyr Sviatoslavich, Svyatopolk and Yaroslav the Wise were made by masters from Byzantium. And in the beginning of the 11th century coin manufacturing was interrupted for a while.

At the end of the 20th century. Ukraine has gained independence and established its statehood. The state does not exist without monetary exchange and mints. Only the transfer of the Mint from the city of Lugansk allows us to name the location of the 1st Mint of independent Ukraine. Medal art of Ukraine 20th c. Is still being studied. There are only small essays and biographies of some masters. There is also a constant search for new materials and alloys for the production of jubilee medals.