In 2015, I was invited to join the Matariki Network of Universities collaborative initiative to digitize, study and conserve University numismatic collections. Through this research, over 600 ancient coins from the Queen’s University Diniacopoulos Collection of Antiquities will become available to scholars and students worldwide through an open access database.
The collection was acquired by Queen’s for educational purposes, so that students from the Department of Classics (BA and MA) could study and research ancient artifacts while students from Art Conservation (MA) could conduct research on materials composition, manufacturing techniques, old restoration and cleaning methods, and perform conservation treatments according to current standards of practice. Among the pieces acquired in 2001 are 627 Greek and Roman coins, a good part of which have not been identified and studied yet. The range of types and time periods represented in the collection make the coins a valuable research tool for archaeologists, historians, classicists, ancient art historians, and art conservators. (Read More)