Myrtis was a real Athenian girl who died around age 11 during the plague of 430 BC — the epidemic that killed Pericles and devastated Athens during the Second Peloponnesian War. Her remains were discovered in a mass burial at Kerameikos in 1994–95, and forensic reconstruction of her face in 2010 generated significant international coverage, effectively making her the named face of a largely anonymous catastrophe.
The coin was issued as part of Greece's ongoing "Greek Civilization" series, which periodically uses historical and mythological figures as subjects for collector issues rather than general circulation.
Myrtis was a real Athenian girl who died around age 11 during the plague of 430 BC — the epidemic that killed Pericles and devastated Athens during the Second Peloponnesian War. Her remains were discovered in a mass burial at Kerameikos in 1994–95, and forensic reconstruction of her face in 2010 generated significant international coverage, effectively making her the named face of a largely anonymous catastrophe.
The coin was issued as part of Greece's ongoing "Greek Civilization" series, which periodically uses historical and mythological figures as subjects for collector issues rather than general circulation.