Object ID
1994.41.16.G
Object Name
Coin
Date Created
1959
Material
Aluminum
Object Entities
Metevilis, Marina (is related to)
Object Description
Silver coin with a hole in the center. On one side, on the left side of the coin, there is an olive branch. On the right side, opposite of the olive branch, is the text, "20 Lepta". On the other side, the hole is surrounded by an olive wreath at the bottom and a royal crown at the top. Around the perimeter of the coin, it reads, "Kingdom of Greece 1959".
Origin
Lepton, is the name of various fractional units of currency used in the Greek-speaking world from antiquity until today. The word means "small" or "thin", and during classical and Hellenistic times a lepton was always a small value coin, usually the smallest available denomination of another currency. The coin in the lesson of the widow's mite is referred to as a lepton.
In modern Greece, Lepton is the name of the 1/100 denomination of all the official currencies of the Greek state: the phoenix (1827–1832), the drachma (1832–2001) and the euro (2002–current) – the name is the Greek form of "euro cent." Its unofficial currency sign is lambda. Until the introduction of the euro, no Greek coin had been minted with a denomination lower than 5 lepta since the late 1870s.
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Citation
Coin, 1959, National Hellenic Museum, https://collections.nationalhellenicmuseum.org/Detail/objects/9979. Accessed 04/16/24.