| Description : The history of the hill is deeply rooted in pre‐Christian
times. Until the 14th century the castle of Jurgaičiai stood here. The Lithuanians, at that time the last pagan
people of Europe, defended themselves against the bloody Eastern Crusades of the Teutonic Order and its Livonian sword
brothers ‐ in the end in vain. The castle is said to have been destroyed in 1348, but the hill survived as a mythical
sanctuary. When the Lithuanians rose up against tsarist foreign rule in the 19th century and the uprisings were
bloodily crushed, inhabitants of surrounding villages erected memorial crosses on the hill for their dead relatives. The
crosses were removed several times after the Soviet occupation of Lithuania in 1940, most recently in 1975, but Mikhail
Gorbachev had the hill added to the list of Lithuanian national monuments during the Perestroika period. In 2008, the
Lithuanian cross carving (Lithuanian: Kryždirbystė) was declared an intangible world cultural heritage site by
UNESCO. The coin designed by Rytas Jonas Belevičius shows a variety of different crosses, covered columns
(Lithuanian: Stogastulpis) and on the left a sculpture of Casimir, the patron saint of Lithuania. On the lower right, the
knight Vytis ("the pursuer") is depicted in accordance with the coat of arms of Lithuania. The steps of the stairs are
overlaid by a crescent moon cross. The crescent moon, an ancient pagan symbol, was associated with the female cycle of the
month. In the Christian context, the whiteness of the moon represents innocence and symbolises in particular the Virgin
Mary ‐ in Vilnius, the icon of Mary, which is considered an image of grace, has been adorned in the Gate of Dawn since
1849 with a silver crescent moon, a votive gift. At the top of the coin is the year of issue "2020" and "LIETUVA"
(Lithuania) and at the bottom of the coin in two lines are the words "KRYŽIŲ KALNAS" (Hill of Crosses); to the
right is the circular mint mark "LMK" of the Lithuanian mint Lietuvos monetų kalykla in Vilnius. |
