For decades Oxford has been a world centre for Greek numismatics.
Colin Kraay’s (one time keeper of the coin room there) magisterial work on the period was published in the 1970s. With new material now available, this new work will have a wider scope. Expected in about five years, it has the provisional title Money and Coinage before Alexander. It will be lavishly illustrated (c.1500 coins). The work will be executed by Henry Kim who is curator of Greek coins at the Ashmolean and a university lecturer in Greek numismatics and holds degrees from Lincoln College, Oxford and Harvard University.
Right: the Minotaur and the labyrinth on a coin of Knossos (Crete) c.400BC. One of thousands of Greek coins in the Heberden Coin Room at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford.
Ashmolean Greek grant
UK: IT HAS just been announced exclusively to the Antiques Trade Gazette that the Heberden Coin Room at the Ashmolean Museum, which holds one of the most comprehensive collections of coins and medals in the world, has received a very substantial grant to update and rewrite the history of Greek coins from their invention (c.630BC) to Alexander the Great (d.323BC).
