Dr Simon Glenn

I am a research fellow in the Heberden Coin Room at the Ashmolean Museum. Since 2016 I have worked on various Greek and Roman numismatic projects at the Ashmolean, often with a focus on digitisation and linked open data. In addition to a wide-ranging interest in coins and their place in historical interpretation, I am interested in the application of new digital methodologies to numismatic research. I was initially employed on the Oxford-Paris Alexander project (OPAL), studying the transnational heritage of the coinage of Alexander the Great, which resulted in an edited volume (with Frédérique Duyrat and Andrew Meadows): Alexander the Great: A Linked Open World (2018). I have since been a member of the Ancient Coins as Related Cultural Heritage (ARCH), Coin Hoards of the Roman Empire, and Roman Provincial Coinage Online projects. I have also worked on a numismatic project at the University of Leeds, researching and cataloguing the University’s collection of over 20,000 coins and am currently reviews editor of the Numismatic Chronicle.

My DPhil thesis, completed in 2015 and published in 2020 as Money and Power in Hellenistic Bactria, was a die study of the coins of six kings of the Graeco-Bactrian kingdom. By applying an objective numismatic methodology to these coins, which are in many cases the only source of evidence for these rulers, I was able to provide a sound basis for historical interpretation of the period. This year I have had the opportunity to return to this fascinating area as Co-Investigator on the OXUS-INDUS project, run jointly between Oxford and the American Numismatic Society, which will create a new digital and print typology of the coins of the Graeco-Bactrian and Indo-Greek kings.