Why does the author include this description of the penny in beginning of the chapter?

To make the reader visualize the coin and become interested in learning more about the culturally significant artifact

Explanation:

"A History Of the World in 100 Objects" was a series of 100-part radio which was presented by Neil MacGregor. Neil was the British Museum Director. This series was a joint project of the British Museum and BBC Radio.

In this series, Neil introduced the objects of the art, history, and technology that were placed in the British Museum. The purpose of this series was to introduce the audience to the human history.

In his fifth series, he started with the description of "Suffragette-defaced penny". The penny had the picture of the King Edward VII on which the slogan "Vote for women" was written. Neil introduced the coin in this way so that he can make readers visualize the coin and their interest to learn more about the cultural artifact be evoked.

walter refusing lindner's offer.

if you don't mind posting the paragraph so i could read it that would a lot. (;