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The Collections | Coins | Past Events
Past Events
organized by the Coin Department
Crusader Day
14 May 2005
Some Hollywood sparkle rubbed off on a special Crusader-themed history day at the Barber Institute, when the man who literally made a fortune for the Orlando Bloom blockbuster Kingdom of Heaven stamped his mark on the occasion.
Master Godfrey (Dave Greenhalgh), who was asked to mint currency for Ridley Scott’s latest historical epic, helped children make a mint at the family-friendly open day Art and Coins in the Time of the Crusades on Saturday, May 14. Visitors were able to stamp their own Crusader coin with the medieval moneyer, while expert guides were on hand in the coin gallery and throughout the rest of the museum to shed light on the important collection of ancient coins and other fascinating artefacts.
The Barber Institute was recently described by Britain’s Best Museums and Galleries as “one of the finest small picture galleries in the country”. But apart from the priceless art collection, it’s also one of the finest collections of coins outside of the Hermitage in St Petersburg, and also possesses a fine range of historical art objects.
Barber Coin Curator Eurydice Georganteli said the Crusader Day was a chance to highlight some of the wonderful, yet often under-appreciated pre-Renaissance museum exhibits in the collection, as well as the Western medieval, Byzantine and Islamic coins. Taking pride of place on the day were a range of priceless religious and secular works of art, coins and luxury objects, dating from the sixth to the fifteenth centuries, including ivories, panel paintings, sculpture – and even a German arm reliquary containing a small arm bone reputed to have belonged to a saint.
“These objects once adorned abbeys, private chapels and palaces, and reflect the spirituality and cultural tradition the crusaders brought with them during their journeys in the East,” said Dr Georganteli. “Also, the coinage produced in the medieval Eastern Mediterranean mirrors this artistic interchange between Western medieval Europe, Byzantium and Islam more that in any other period in the region’s history. By focusing on the exciting period of history around the first crusade, we can put these objects in context, both historically and politically,” she added. “Works of art never exist in a vacuum, and this is particularly true of coins.”
Conferences and numismatic workshops
Infrastructures: Numismatics
Numismatic Round Table as part of the XXI International Congress of Byzantine Studies, London, 21-26 August 2006. In collaboration with Dr Andrew Burnett, Deputy Director, The British Museum
Coinage and History in the 7th-century Near East:
7th-Century Syrian Numismatic Round Table, University of Birmingham, November 2002. In collaboration with the School of Historical Studies.
