Silver 2 1/2 Asses Menrva series I

Populonia, the only Etruscan city known to have struck its own coinage directly from locally smelted ore, drew its metal wealth from the iron mines of Elba — the slag heaps around the ancient city still testify to the industrial scale of that operation. The fractional silver issues of the Menrva series represent some of the smallest denominations produced by any Etruscan mint, struck across a period that saw Populonia increasingly squeezed between Roman expansion to the south and Gallic pressure from the north.

The city was sacked by Rome around 282 BC, which likely interrupted production. Vecchi's classification of this piece within series III places it among the later, lighter-standard issues.