Margaret Thompson

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Margaret Thompson (born February 22, 1911 in Trenton , † February 29, 1992 in Haverford ) was an American numismatist . For several decades, she played a key role in researching ancient Greek coins, both as a scientist and as a science organizer .

Life

Margaret Thompson studied at Radcliffe College in Cambridge , Massachusetts . She graduated with a bachelor's degree in 1931 and began working as an English teacher at a junior high school . In 1937 she became an employee at the American School of Classical Studies at Athens , where she stayed until 1940 and was again there in 1948. The work in Athens, where she was entrusted with the processing of the found coins from the Athens Agora, was interrupted by the second World war . Originally, she was hired as secretary to the head of the excavations, Theodore Leslie Shear , but her quick comprehension meant that she was soon entrusted with other tasks relating to securing, inspecting and processing found coins. During the war years, Thompson worked for the Greek War Relief Association in New York . In 1949 she became Assistant Curator at the American Numismatic Society in New York, where she was responsible for the Greek coins, after she attracted attention through several smaller publications on the found coins of the Athens Agora Sydney P. Noe , the then Chief Curator of the American Numismatic Society.

In 1954 she published the 37,000 coins found in the Agora excavation from the Roman period to the Middle Ages. In 1961 she began her fundamental work on Attic coinage of the so-called “new style” from the 2nd century BC. BC, in which she processed these coins like a corpus . In 1965, Thompson became the first woman to be elected president of the Archaeological Institute of America . In this position, which she held until 1968, she pushed various new programs both in the field of research and public relations. In the same year she also became an adjunct professor at Columbia University in New York. After 20 years as Assistant Curator , she also became Chief Curator of the American Numismatic Society in 1969 . In 1973 Thompson was the driving force behind the 8th International Numismatic Congress in New York and Washington, DC A book on the Greek coin hoarding , which she wrote with Colin M. Kraay and Otto Mørkholm and which is another standard work on the Greek, was published on the same date Thompson's numismatics was. During this time, several thousand ancient coins from the Metropolitan Museum of Art were acquired for the American Numismatic Society. This could be achieved with donations that were mainly raised by Thompson. This action made them known beyond a limited professional community. In 1976 she gave up her responsibility for Greek coins to the American Numismatic Society, ended her teaching activities at the university in 1978 and retired in 1979 as Chief Curator .

Thompson was honored for her accomplishments. The Archer M. Huntington Medal in 1961 and the Medal of the Royal Numismatic Society in 1967 were the two most important awards in international numismatics. At the University of California at Berkeley she became Regents Professor in 1979 . In 1979 she was honored with the commemorative publication Greek numismatics and archeology , and she was also appointed Chief Curator Emeritus of the American Numismatic Society. 1984 followed the gold medal of the Archaeological Institute of America , two years later she was in Columbia University. In 1989 the American Numismatic Society founded the Margaret Thompson Curatorship of Greek Coins . In addition to the studies already mentioned, she devoted herself in particular to the coinage of Alexander the Great and the Seleucids . Since 1972 she was a member of the American Philosophical Society .

Fonts (selection)

  • Coins from the Roman through the Venetian period. The Athenian Agora 2. The American School of Classical Studies at Athens, Princeton 1954 Digitized .
  • The New Style Silver Coinage of Athens. American Numismatic Society, New York 1961
  • with Colin Kraay and Otto Mørkholm : An Inventory of Greek Coin Hoards. International Numismatic Commission by the American Numismatic Society, New York 1973.
  • Alexander's Drachm Mints. I: Sardes and Miletus. II: Lampsacus and Abydus. American Numismatic Society, New York 1991, ISBN 0897221931 .

literature

  • Otto Mørkholm, Nancy Wagoner (Ed.): Greek numismatics and archeology. Essays in honor of Margaret Thompson. Cultura Press, Wetteren 1979 ( list of articles ).
  • William E. Metcalf: Margaret Thompson, 1911-1992. In: American Journal of Archeology. Volume 96, 1992, pp. 547-549.
  • Stefan Krmnicek: Thompson, Margaret. In: Peter Kuhlmann , Helmuth Schneider (Hrsg.): History of the ancient sciences. Biographical Lexicon (= The New Pauly . Supplements. Volume 6). Metzler, Stuttgart / Weimar 2012, ISBN 978-3-476-02033-8 , Sp. 1221 f.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Member History: Margaret Thompson. American Philosophical Society, accessed January 29, 2019 .
personal data
SURNAME Thompson, Margaret
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American numismatist
DATE OF BIRTH February 22, 1911
PLACE OF BIRTH Trenton
DATE OF DEATH February 29, 1992
Place of death Haverford