Struck in 2001, dated 2000

The Bank of Latvia announces its largest national collector coin program Latvia. Times and Values, which will consist of several series.

The coin Earth is the first in the series Roots. The coin's obverse features fragments of a familiar ornamental pattern that originates in myths of the Indo-European tradition. These mythical roots allow the ornaments to symbolize what once constituted the world of a farmer: the earth, the sky, natural phenomena, the seasonal and diurnal changes. The arrangement of fragments evokes the rhythm of human life and the cyclical character of farm work.

The coin's reverse features a stylised representation of the altering contour of the terrain, which evokes the earth as the source of strength and nourishment and shelter, and a threshing barn, which symbolizes the earth's riches. The calmness and power emanating from the arrangement of elements on the coin expresses the proportion and harmony of the Latvian landscape. It is not in sharp contrasts, but in such subdued serenity that the power of the Latvian landscape lies.