The British Museum Department of Coins and Medals is a department of the British Museum involving the collection, research and exhibition of numismatics, and comprising the largest library of numismatic artefacts in the United Kingdom, including almost one million coins, medals, tokens and other related objects. [1] The collection spans the history of coinage from its origins in the 7th century BC to the present day, and is representative of both Eastern and Western numismatic traditions.
Numismatics constituted an important part of the 1753 bequest of Sir Hans Sloane which formed the British Museum's original collection, comprising some 20,000 objects. [2] The collection was incorporated into the Department of Antiquities in 1807, before the establishment of a separate Coins and Medals department in 1860–1.
As in other parts of the museum, the department has been able to expand its collection by purchase, donation and bequest. The department has benefited from the munificence of collectors such as Clayton Mordaunt Cracherode, Sarah Banks, Edward Hawkins, Sir Alexander Cunningham and George Bleazby. A significant strength of the collection are British coins from all ages, which have benefited from the ancient law of Treasure Trove. This has enabled the museum to purchase important hoards of gold and silver coins, many of which were buried during periods of crisis or upheaval. There are approximately 9,000 coins, medals and banknotes on display around the British Museum. More than half of these can be found in the Citi Money Gallery (Gallery 68), while the remainder form part of the permanent displays throughout the museum. Items from the full collection can be seen by the general public in the Study Room by appointment. [3]
The department celebrated its 150th anniversary in 2011. [4]
The Department has a strong research history, which underpins publications (see, for example, the British Museum Catalogues of Coins), exhibitions [5] and other activities.
Publications associated with exhibitions
Other publications
In addition to being numismatists, staff of the department have also been distinguished linguists, historians, archaeologists, art historians, classicists, medievalists, orientalists, and authors: [18]
A coin is a small object, usually round and flat, used primarily as a medium of exchange or legal tender. They are standardized in weight, and produced in large quantities at a mint in order to facilitate trade. They are most often issued by a government. Coins often have images, numerals, or text on them. The faces of coins or medals are sometimes called the obverse and the reverse, referring to the front and back sides, respectively. The obverse of a coin is commonly called heads, because it often depicts the head of a prominent person, and the reverse is known as tails.
The history of ancient Greek coinage can be divided into four periods: the Archaic, the Classical, the Hellenistic and the Roman. The Archaic period extends from the introduction of coinage to the Greek world during the 7th century BC until the Persian Wars in about 480 BC. The Classical period then began, and lasted until the conquests of Alexander the Great in about 330 BC, which began the Hellenistic period, extending until the Roman absorption of the Greek world in the 1st century BC. The Greek cities continued to produce their own coins for several more centuries under Roman rule. The coins produced during this period are called Roman provincial coins or Greek Imperial Coins.
The Museo Casa de Moneda is a numismatics museum located in La Candelaria neighborhood of Bogotá, Colombia. It is managed by the Bank of the Republic of Colombia and used to display its numismatic collection that is composed by around 18,600 objects that include artwork, banknotes, bonds, coins, derivatives, medals, negotiable instruments, and printing instruments from various periods and regions of the world.
The Treasure Valuation Committee (TVC) is an advisory non-departmental public body of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) based in London, which offers expert advice to the government on items of declared treasure in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland that museums there may wish to acquire from the Crown.
The Liudhard medalet is a gold Anglo-Saxon coin or small medal found some time before 1844 near St Martin's Church in Canterbury, England. It was part of the Canterbury-St Martin's hoard of six items. The coin, along with other items found with it, now resides in the World Museum Liverpool. Although some scholarly debate exists on whether or not all the items in the hoard were from the same grave, most historians who have studied the object conclude that they were buried together as a necklace in a 6th-century woman's grave. The coin is set in a mount so that it could be worn as jewellery, and has an inscription on the obverse or front surrounding a robed figure. The inscription refers to Liudhard, a bishop who accompanied Bertha to England when she married Æthelberht the king of Kent. The reverse side of the coin has a double-barred cross, or patriarchal cross, with more lettering.
The Canterbury-St Martin's hoard is a coin-hoard found in the 19th century at Canterbury, Kent dating from the 6th century. The group, in the World Museum, Liverpool, consists of eight items, including three gold coins mounted with suspension loops for use as pendants. One of these is the Liudhard medalet, the earliest surviving Anglo-Saxon coin. Another coin is in the Bibliotheque Nationale.
The Cunetio Hoard, also known as the Mildenhall Hoard, is the largest hoard of Roman coins found in Britain. It was discovered in 1978 at the site of the Roman town of Cunetio, near modern-day Mildenhall, Wiltshire, and consisted of 54,951 low value coins. The coins were contained in a large pot and a lead container. The coins are now in the British Museum and the pot is on display at the Wiltshire Museum in Devizes.
Joe Cribb is a numismatist, specialising in Asian coinages, and in particular on coins of the Kushan Empire. His catalogues of Chinese silver currency ingots, and of ritual coins of Southeast Asia were the first detailed works on these subjects in English. With David Jongeward he published a catalogue of Kushan, Kushano-Sasanian and Kidarite Hun coins in the American Numismatic Society New York in 2015. In 2021 he was appointed Adjunct Professor of Numismatics at Hebei Normal University, China.
Spink & Son is an auction and collectibles company known principally for their sales of coins, banknotes and medals. They also deal in philatelic items, wine and spirits, and other collectible items.
Ian Carradice is an authority on the coinages of ancient Greece, Rome, Persia and Carthage, and the history of museums. He is the former professor of ancient numismatics at the University of St Andrews and the director of the museums of that university.
A numismatist is a specialist, researcher, and/or well-informed collector of numismatics/coins. Numismatists can include collectors, specialist dealers, and scholar-researchers who use coins in object-based research. Although use of the term numismatics was first recorded in English in 1799, people had been collecting and studying coins long before then all over the world.
Silk Road Numismatics is a special field within Silk Road studies and within numismatics. It is particularly important because it covers a part of the world where history is not always clear – either because the historical record is incomplete or is contested. For example, numismatics has played a central role in determining the chronology of the Kushan kings.
Helen Kay Wang is an English sinologist and translator. She works as curator of East Asian Money at the British Museum in London. She has also published a number of literary translations from Chinese, including an award-winning translation of a Chinese children's book.
The Lhotka Memorial Prize is a prize awarded to the author of a publication about numismatics which is considered most helpful to the elementary student of numismatics published in the previous two calendar years.
The British Museum Catalogues of Coins was a series envisioned and initiated by Reginald Stuart Poole, Keeper of the Department of Coins and Medals, at the British Museum, between 1870 and 1893. The aim was to produce a scholarly series of catalogues of the collection, based on the British Museum's collection and other collections. The series continued after his retirement, and continues to this day, with the collection increasingly being made available online.
Steve Cribb was an English disability rights activist, artist, collector and numismatist.
Andrew Michael Burnett, is a British numismatist and museum curator, who specialises in Roman coins. He was Deputy Director of the British Museum from 2003 to 2013, and Keeper of its Department of Coins and Medals from 1992 to 2003. He was president of the Royal Numismatic Society from 2013 to 2018.
Haim Gitler is an Israeli curator and researcher, specializing in the field of numismatics. He is chief curator of archaeology and curator of numismatics at the Israel Museum, Jerusalem, as well as the President of the Israel Numismatic Society.
Noonans Mayfair, formerly Dix Noonan Webb, is an auction house based in London. It specialises in coins, medals, jewellery and paper money. Since being established, the firm has sold over 400,000 lots.
Philip Attwood is a British numismatist associated with the British Museum Department of Coins and Medals, where he served as chief curator until his retirement in 2020.
