25 Centesimae Incuse series: rooster

Populonia, the Etruscan coastal city north of modern Piombino, was the only Etruscan settlement known to have struck its own coinage directly from locally smelted metal — iron ore and copper extracted from the mines of Elba and the nearby Colline Metallifere. This bronze series dates to a period when Populonia was under increasing Roman pressure during the Second Punic War, and the city's independent monetary production was already in its final phase. The incuse technique, pressing the type into the flan rather than raising it, is an archaic convention the Populonian mint retained long after mainland Greek and Roman workshops had abandoned it.