Mythical Creatures

The ninth gold coin of the Czech Mint from the Mythical Creatures collector's series features the Minotaur.

Minos, king of Crete, was the most powerful ruler of the entire Mediterranean. His land was surrounded by water, and he regularly sacrificed to Poseidon to keep his favour. But the white bull that was to be slain in the name of the god of the seas was so beautiful that Minos spared him. An angry Poseidon decided to punish the king, and so he made his wife, Pásifaé, fall head over heels in love with the animal. They gave birth to a monstrous offspring - a creature with the body of a man and the head of a bull, which was named Minotaur, or Minoan Bull. The shamed king decided to hide the bloodthirsty monster, which hungered for human flesh, from the world. He commissioned the inventor Daedalus to build an intricate labyrinth to confine the Minotaur, sending him seven boys and seven virgins every nine years for food. The evil dream was only ended by the Athenian hero Theseus. He willingly went into the trap of no return to kill the Minotaur...

The medal maker Asamat Baltaev, DiS., placed the angry Minotaur on the reverse side of the coin and supplemented it with the English inscription MINOTAURUS. It is not without interest that the mintage does not have a classic coin frame – instead of that, the relief is surrounded by decorative Hellenistic ornaments that permeate the entire collector´s cycle. As the coins of the Czech Mint are issued with a foreign license from the island of Niue, their obverse side bears the portrait and name of Queen Elizabeth II, the nominal value of 5 DOLLARS (NZD) and the year of issue 2022.

Remember that the Czech Mint also offers a spectacular collector's album where you can store your complete twelfe-piece collection of mythical creatures.