From Alexander the Great to Kanishka: Numismatic Evidence in Constructing Early Central Asian and Indian History With Osmund Bopearachchi

Study Groups
Silver coin of the Indo-Greek Agathocles depicting Balarāma-Saṃkarṣaṇa and Vāsudeva-Kṛṣṇa. National Museum, Kabul.

From Alexander the Great to Kanishka: Numismatic Evidence in Constructing Early Central Asian and Indian History With Osmund Bopearachchi

Instructor: 
Osmund Bopearachchi
When: 
May 14, 2016
Time: 
10:30 am - 3:30 pm
Place: 
Education Studios
Fee: 
$45 Society members, $55 non-members (after Museum admission), includes morning coffee and lunch. Online registration is closed for this event, please call the office if you wish to attend.

Dr. Bopearachchi is well known to many of us for his work on the history and art of Gandhara. Today he will introduce us to his first love and real specialty: numismatic evidence in constructing the history of Alexander the Great and his Greek, Scythian, Parthian, and Kushan successors in Central Asia and India. We will begin in the morning with a general introduction to the importance of coins in forming our understanding of history generally, but most particularly in the period from 327 BCE to 150 CE, our focus for the day. We will then be introduced to actual portraits of Alexander and other important Indo-Greek sovereigns. Finally, we will look at the emergence of Vishnu and Shiva images in India, both numismatic and sculptural.

 

Osmund Bopearachchiis Adjunct Professor of Central and South Asian Art, Archaeology, and Numismatics, UC Berkeley. He is Emeritus Director of Research at the French National Center for Scientific Research’s “Hellenism and Oriental Civilisations” program, and former professor of Central Asian and South-Asian archaeology and art history at the Paris IV-Sorbonne University. He is currently working on a new catalogue of Greco-Bactrian and Indo-Greek coins, as well as the publication of a selection of hitherto unknown masterpieces from Gandhara and Greater Gandhara dispersed in museums and private collections in Japan, Europe, Canada, and the U.S.

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