eli5 how ancient societies mass produced coins with intricate designs
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They made a die (a piece of iron with the design of the coin carved into its surface) for each face of the coin.
Then they put a heated piece of gold or silver in between the two dies and hit the top die with a hammer.
The die took a long time to make, but could be used thousands, or even tens of thousands, of times before it wore out.
(It is also possible to make coins by pouring molten metal into a mould, but at least in Europe that was more common as a way of making *counterfeit* coins).
They would basically stamp them. The actual stamp would be a carving and would take a while, but once you created the stamp, making coins was just a matter of how quickly you can get a coin between the dies and hit it with a hammer. Make a couple dozen die sets so multiple people can work at once and mass production just becomes a matter of labor.
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