TALES FROM THE UNDERWORLD: MINES, MINTS, MONEY
Eurydice Georganteli, Department of History of Art and Architecture
egeorganteli@fas.harvard.edu
Before our descent into the Annaberg Mine, Saxony, Germany, May 2025
Mines are mystical spaces that have given rise to some of the most consequential developments in human history. The earth’s mineral and metal wealth has been exploited for millennia to meet societal needs, generate profit, and exert power. Access to mines—and the perils and ingenuity required for metal and mineral extraction—have inspired compelling stories, music, and folk traditions, shaped social structures, and fueled cultural mobility, masterpieces in art and architecture, and sacred topographies. This enduring legacy informs my work as a numismatist and academic teacher, which last summer took me to the mining landscapes of Saxony in Germany and the Karlovy Vary Region in the Czech Republic. There, as part of the collaborative project—Metals, Minerals, and the Life Cycle—between Harvard’s History of Art and Architecture and the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin, I am co-directing I joined an international team of specialists to survey the very mines that produced early modern silver currencies including the thaler, the coin that would ultimately lend its name to the American dollar. Tracing the journey from Saxon mine shafts to the global spread of the thaler, and eventually to the foundational currency of the United States, underscored the profound, often overlooked, connection between European mining history and American economic identity.
As an art historian specializing in numismatics and cultural heritage, I have long explored the cultural biographies of coins and money, drawn to the aesthetics, politics, and geographic scope of currencies to illuminate connections across time and place. Yet, it was while surveying the historic mines of Saxony, that I confronted firsthand the arduous and complex processes underlying the creation of coinage: from prospecting and mining to extraction, smelting, refining, and, ultimately, coining. This fieldwork not only revealed human ingenuity and resilience but also helped me deepen my understanding of technological advancements that shaped new economies and polities, as well as the very art and authority embodied in the coins themselves. As I prepare to teach the numismatic courses “HAA 73: Money Matters” and “HAA 274: The King’s Money: Power, Art, and Economy in the Global Middle Ages” in the spring of 2026, my goal is for our students to appreciate the vital interplay between the material realities of mining and the broader historical narratives of money, economy, art, and society.
