Engraver Panayiotis Andreou leads two free coin-engraving workshops at Nicosia's Leventis Museum

The Leventis Municipal Museum of Nicosia and Alpha Bank Cyprus have added two engraving workshops to the programme of their coin exhibition, both on the last weekend of November and both led by the visual artist and engraver Panayiotis Andreou. In each session participants design a coin of their own, cut it into a wooden block and pull a print of it on paper.

The Saturday session, From the coin… to your own imprint!, runs on 28 November 2026 from 10:30 to 12:00. It opens with the history and design of coins from Greece and Cyprus, what their images, symbols and legends convey, and the link between coinage and engraving; then the group draws, engraves and prints.

On Sunday 29 November, at the same hours, I engrave my own coin! is for children aged 8 to 12. They start from coins in Alpha Bank's numismatic collection and in the museum's own holdings before making a design, engraving the block and printing it.

Both workshops are free and held in Greek, and places must be booked in advance on +357 22661475 or at education@leventismuseum.org.cy. The museum starts its programmes on the dot and asks participants to come ten minutes early.

The exhibition behind the workshops

Both sessions belong to Messages on Metal, which opened at the museum in October and shows 136 coins, 110 of them lent by Alpha Bank, until 10 January 2027.

How ancient coins were engraved

The first coins of Cyprus also began with an engraver. The kingdoms of the island began to issue silver in the late sixth century BCE, during the Cypro-Archaic period. A lump of metal was placed between two dies and hammered, and the designs engraved into the dies passed onto the coin. On the earliest pieces only the lower die carried a design; the upper punch die soon received one too [1, p. 59].