Celebrating Wolfgang Hahn’s 80th Birthday

Byzantium – Bavaria – Axum: Wolfgang Hahn’s three main areas of research show that he is far from ordinary and does not fit into any framework. His list of publications ran to 36 pages when he went into so-called retirement in 2010. Since then, a few more pages have been added. But that is not what I find so remarkable. Others numismatists have written a lot, too. I am amazed at the variety of topics on which Wolfgang Hahn has written in-depth works, not only for numismatists and members of the academic world, but also for the readers of the German-speaking MoneyTrend magazine.

Wolfgang Hahn does not fit into a box. For example, he once held his first lecture of the year in felt slippers to give students the feeling that they would find a home there. And he confidently gave the opening lecture for a major exhibition on Constantinople with a fez on his head.

An Early Start

Born on 12 March 1945 in Hermansreuth, Austria, Wolfgang Hahn attended grammar school, where he of course learnt Latin and saw his first Roman coin at the age of 13. From then on he was hooked. Numismatics became his passion. However, he was more interested in European medieval and modern coins, which he could get his hands on. After graduating from high school in 1963, Wolfgang Hahn began his studies in Vienna. What did he study? History and Classics, of course. Because numismatics didn’t exist at the university at that time.

A Representative of the Vienna School

This changed when Robert Göbl founded his famous department in 1965. At that time it was still called the Department of Ancient Numismatics and Pre-Islamic History of Central Asia, and was therefore tailored to the research interests of its director. Wolfgang Hahn became Göbl’s first student, so to speak, as he once wrote: “I already owned a denarius of Domitian and an antoninianus of Philippus Arabus as well as a quarter-follis of Justinian… and so Göbl set me the task of identifying the Roman coins found in Carnuntum.” Decades later, Hahn suspected that this was a kind of endurance test. But “stubborn as I am, I didn’t let it get me down”. This led to a dissertation on the coins found at Carnuntum.

What happened next? Wolfgang Hahn almost became part of the then very active Munich coin trade. We would have benefitted from him! After all, even Göbl had catalogued the coins in the Apostolo Zeno collection as an expert for the Dorotheum auction house before becoming a university professor. But Wolfgang Hahn was destined to take a different path. After a few academic detours, he became Robert Göbl’s successor and the true father of the Vienna Department of Numismatics. It was he who turned the faculty, which had been tailored to the needs of a single professor, into the Department of Numismatics and Monetary History that we all know today, and that is often cited as a model and highly regarded for its numismatic versatility. Nothing less than a beacon of numismatic scholarship!

A Universal Scholar

Universal scholar Wolfgang Hahn was predestined for the job. Not only because of his pleasant temperament, which made him so different from his predecessor. He has another virtue: he is interested in everything and is able to share this enthusiasm with everyone – colleagues, students and collectors alike. No one describes this better than his students themselves, who wrote a short declaration of love to Wolfgang Hahn on the occasion of his departure from the Department: “For us, Hahn is the ideal image in a declining era of science; in a world of specialists, he is a universal scholar of the old school who, thanks to his broad horizon, never loses sight of the big picture. Whatever question or coin you approach him with, he has already read about it, held the coin in his hands or knows who has written about it – often enough this person was himself”.

A Cosmopolitan

Even though Wolfgang Hahn is of course known throughout the world and is a popular lecturer, the word “cosmopolitan” means something different to me. Hahn doesn’t just jet from capital to capital, from coin cabinet to coin cabinet. He has developed a passion for a country that the average person is more likely to know from the evening news or from NGO appeals for donations: Ethiopia.

Wolfgang Hahn has been travelling through ancient Abyssinia since 1984 to reconstruct the history of Axum through numismatics. Decades ago, he was doing what is now experiencing a boom – giving the inhabitants of Africa back their pre-colonial history.

The cosmos is not only made up of the places “you” know, but of much, much more.

To explore the most hidden places in Ethiopia, Wolfgang Hahn uses a variety of means of transport – both modern and ancient. His wonderful sense of humour helps him to survive the hardships of such journeys.

Just a Low-Budget Coin Collector?

Shall I give you a little example of Wolfgang Hahn’s humour, although it is almost impossible to translate? Well, I’ll quote again from his retirement speech: “The fact that I’ve remained nothing more than a low-budget coin collector has often made it at least possible to equip courses with original illustrative material, true to the saying ‘Numismatics is history you can touch’. Originally, the Department’s collection contained very few post-ancient coins. My wife, who had died the previous year, used to say, although she was a staunch Protestant, that St Eligius made sure that interesting coins kept coming to me. And, in fact, I did not only appraise and describe them, but also acquired them – whereupon my wife had to catalogue the specimens with the patience of a saint. I have nothing to be ashamed of or apologise for collecting coins, because I can name famous numismatists such as Dannenberg, Luschin or, more recently, Philip Grierson – not to mention Göbl – as my role models.”

Well, it makes me proud that among coin collectors, numismatists and university professors there are people like Wolfgang Hahn who don’t take themselves too seriously and instead live for their passion.

Many happy returns of the day, dear Professor Dr Hahn! Thank you for the many years you have dedicated to numismatics! We hope that we will be able to read much more from your pen, both scientific and humorous, and preferably both together.