![]() He called the island near the place where Icarus fell into the ocean Icaria, in the memory of his son. Daedalus wept (lamenting his own arts), took Icarus’s body and buried it. Losing his wings, Icarus fell in the sea and drowned. The blazing sun melted and softened the wax that held the feathers together and they fell off one by one. They had passed Samos, Delos and Lebynthos, and the boy, forgetting himself, began to soar upward toward the sun. When both were prepared for flight, Daedalus warned Icarus not to fly too high, because the heat of the sun would melt the wax, nor too low, because the sea foam would soak the feathers and make them heavy. Using bird feathers of various sizes, thread, and wax, he shaped them to resemble a bird’s wings. ![]() Since Minos controlled the land routes as well, Daedalus set to work to make wings for himself and his son Icarus. He could not leave Crete by sea, as King Minos kept a strict watch on all vessels, permitting none to sail without being carefully searched. The most familiar literary telling explaining Daedalus’ wings is a late one by Ovid in his Metamorphoses.Īfter Theseus and Ariadne eloped together, Daedalus and his son Icarus were imprisoned by King Minos in the labyrinth that he had built. Just a quick note, the coin image below is a photo, but the gilded border was overlaid, no doubt because this was a prototype coin. The border area is gilded and holds the title over a Greco-Roman pattern. ![]() We love how such a little tweak like that does so much to lift the coins overall appearance. Choosing to eschew sticking to the boundaries of the traditional circular coin shape, it laps over the edge in an uneven way, bringing the stormy sea to full three dimensional life. The clever part comes with how the sea is integrated into the design. The symbolism is clear and the tale is fully realised in a single panorama. Daedalus flies above him, while a classic image of the sun fills the background. The focal point of the coin is obviously the fine rendition of Icarus plummeting to his doom in the sea. The coin will need to depict the fall of Icarus while his father looks on, after flying too close to the sun and melting the wax that held his wings on, and it does that superbly. One of them is so famous that even to this day, at least 3,500 years later, is still used to describe someone that has over-reached at something – the tale of Icarus flying too close to the sun. Amongst the stories of gods smiting and heroes heroing, there are allegorical tales meant to warn about hubris, stupidity and greed. Mythology coins almost overwhelmingly focus on the major players, such as gods, demons and otherworldly creatures, so it’s a pleasant surprise to see a new series simply called ‘Mythology’ that focuses its attention elsewhere.
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