2024 Huntington Award Presented to William E. Metcalf

The Annual Meeting

The Annual Meeting featured presentations from ANS officers and staff on accomplishments from the last fiscal year, and the election of a new class of trustees. Attendees enjoyed viewing new acquisitions to the collection on display, including items generously donated to the coin cabinet and library in the last year. The ANS would like to congratulate the newly elected Fellows, Dr. Andrew M. Burnett, Dr. James E. McClellan, and Dr. Roberta Stewart.

Opening remarks from Dr. Andrew M. Burnett, ANS Second Vice President. Image: American Numismatic Society.

Following the Annual Meeting and a reception, guests gathered for the 2024 Archer M. Huntington Award to Dr. William E. Metcalf. After opening remarks from Dr. Ute Wartenberg, Executive Director, Dr. Andrew M. Burnett, ANS Second Vice President, presented the prestigious award to Metcalf, noting his tremendous contributions to Roman and Byzantine numismatics. Metcalf provided the Silvia Mani Hurter Memorial Lecture, “The Making of Roman Provincial Coinage (X),” on the last volume of his project, which provides a standard typology of the provincial coinage of the Roman Empire. Metcalf detailed the background of the project, demonstrating how coins are referenced in this essential resource in an online database.

Metcalf giving his Silvia Mani Hurter Memorial Lecture, “The Making of Roman Provincial Coinage (X). Image: American Numismatic Society.

About Dr. William E. Metcalf

William E. Metcalf received his degrees from the University of Michigan (A.B. in Latin with distinction and highest honors in 1969, A.M. in Classical Studies in 1970, and Ph.D. in Classical Studies in 1973). He joined the ANS as Assistant Curator of Roman and Byzantine Coins in 1973, and, following promotions to Associate Curator and Deputy Chief Curator, became Chief Curator in 1979, a position he held until 2000. In 2002, he became Curator of Coins and Medals at the Yale University Art Gallery and Professor of Classics (adj.) at Yale University. From 2007-2014, he served as the Ben Lee Damsky Curator of Coins and Medals and has been appointed Visiting Professor or Adjunct Professor at Columbia University, Princeton University, University of Padua, Bryn Mawr College, Rutgers University, and New York University.

Metcalf is the author of several books, including The Cistophori of Hadrian (ANS, 1980), The Silver Coinage of Cappadocia: Vespasian-Commodus (ANS, 1996), and The Later Republican Cistophori (ANS, 2017), as well as dozens of articles and reviews. He is also the editor of The Oxford Handbook of Greek and Roman Coinage (Oxford University Press, 2012). Metcalf has served on the editorial boards of Lexicon Mythologiae Classicae, American Journal of Archaeology, American Journal of Numismatics, Schweizerische Numismatische Rundschau, the advisory board of Bryn Mawr Classical Review, and on various committees for the American Philological Association (now the Society for Classical Studies) and the Archaeological Institute of America. He was a member of the Bureau of the International Numismatic Commission from 1991-2003.

Among many other awards and recognitions, Metcalf was a member of the Institute for Advanced Study from 1988 to 1989 and was elected as a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London in 1998. The annual William E. Metcalf Lecture Series of the Archaeological Institute of America was established in his honor in 2000, and he received the Jeton de Vermeil of the Société Française de Numismatique in 2008. Metcalf has been a member of the ANS since 1971, and a Life Fellow since 1992. In 2018, the ANS published Concordia Disciplinarum: Essays on Ancient Coinage, History, and Archaeology in Honor of William E. Metcalf, organized and edited by Nathan T. Elkins and Jane DeRose Evans

About the Archer M. Huntington Award

The Archer M. Huntington Award, first presented to Edward T. Newell in 1918, is conferred annually in honor of Archer M. Huntington, ANS President from 1905 to 1910, in recognition of outstanding career contributions to numismatic scholarship. The current award medal is designed by Eugene L. Daub.