A new exhibition is set to open at the National Hellenic Museum this week in Chicago, featuring 29 coins that date back to the Hellenistic and early Roman periods (336BCE-55CE).

Entitled ‘Change: The Story of Coins’, visitors will have the chance to learn about Hellenism’s influence on the use, production and design of coins, and as a result, their importance as a financial, cultural and political tool.

“Coins are some of our best records of political, social and economic change,” said Katherine Kelaidis, Ph.D., Resident Scholar of the National Hellenic Museum.

“The coins in this exhibition demonstrate the vast reach of the Hellenic world in antiquity,” she added.

Meanwhile a section of the exhibition will cover Alexander the Great and his role in spread Hellenism outside of Greece.

“These coins represent a key moment in world history – the period in which Greek customs spread out of the Eastern Mediterranean and become the shared culture of educated people,” Professor Kelaidis said.

The exhibition will open on Sunday 4 March, and will be on show until February 2019.

For more, visit nationalhellenicmuseum.org

Source: neoskosmos