Helen Wang

Curator of East Asian Money
Coins and banknotes of East Asia, seventh century BC to the present Department:
Coins and Medals

 

Helen Wang looks after the Museum’s collection of East Asian coins and banknotes. Her special interests include the archaeologist Sir Aurel Stein (1862-1943), his extensive collections, the Silk Road and the use of textiles as money.

She has also published other lesser known aspects of the British Museum’s East Asian money collection: for example, Chinese secret society money and membership certificates; the logistics of transporting copper for coinage in nineteenth century China; paper money design in Shanghai in the 1900s; bronze token money of Jiangsu province in the 1930s; images of Mao Zedong on Chinese money in the twentieth century.

Contact

hwang@thebritishmuseum.ac.uk
+44 (0)20 7323 8172

Current projects

  • Editing the publication The Music of Ink: Chinese Arts Ancient and Modern (Saffron Books)

  • Editing a catalogue of the Japanese coin collection at the British Museum (British Museum Research Publication)

  • Working with specialists on the subject of textiles as money on the Silk Road.

Previous projects

  • Curator of the exhibition ‘Icons of Revolution: Mao Badges Then and Now’ (2008)

  • Co-editor of the publication Textiles from Dunhuang in UK Collections (2006-7).

  • UK leader and co-editor of the international projects leading to the publication of Catalogue of the Collections of Sir Aurel Stein in the Library of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (1999-2001; 2004-7).

  • Co-organiser of the international conference ‘A Hundred Years of Dunhuang, 1907-2007’ at the British Museum, British Library and British Academy (May 2007)

External fellowships/ honorary positions

  • Council Member, Royal Numismatic Society

Recent publications

H. Wang, Chairman Mao Badges: Symbols and Slogans of the Cultural Revolution (British Museum Research Publication 169, 2009)

H. Wang, M. Cowell, J. Cribb, S. Bowman (eds), Metallurgical Analysis of Chinese Coins at the British Museum (British Museum Research Publication 152, 2005)

Publications relating to Sir Aurel Stein and his collections

H. Wang and J. Perkins (eds) Handbook to the Collections of Sir Aurel Stein in the UK (British Museum Research Publication 129, 2008)
This includes:
- H.Wang, 'Sir Aurel Stein - Bibliography', pp.50-59.
- H. Wang and Agnes Kelecsenyi, 'Sir Aurel Stein - Correspondence', pp.60-77.
- H.Wang, 'The people who worked with Aurel Stein on his Central Asian expeditions', pp.78-85.

H.Wang, 'Sir Aurel Stein: the next generation', in E. Errington and V.S. Curtis (eds) From Persepolis to the Punjab. Exploring ancient Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan, pp.227-234 (British Museum Press, 2007).

Zhao Feng, Helen Wang, Helen Persson, Frances Wood, Wang Le and Xu Zheng (eds), Textiles from Dunhuang in UK Collections (Shanghai: Donghua University Press, 2007). Published in two separate Chinese and English editions. Chinese edition:《敦煌絲綢藝術全集：英藏卷》, 上海东华大学出版社, 2007 年.

John Falconer, Agnes Kelecsenyi, Agnes Karteszi and Lilla Russell-Smith (ed. by Eva Apor and Helen Wang), Supplement to the Catalogue of the collections of Sir Aurel Stein in the Library of the Hungarian Academy of Science (Budapest: Library of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, 2007).

H. Wang, Money on the Silk Road: the evidence from Eastern Central Asito c. AD 800 (London: British Museum Press, 2004)

H. Wang, Sir Aurel Stein. Proceedings of the British Museum Study Day 2002 (London: British Museum Occasional Paper 142, 2004)
This includes:
- H.Wang, 'Catalogue of the Sir Aurel Stein Papers in the British Museum Central Archives', pp.37-62.

H.Wang, ‘How much for a camel? – a new understanding of money on the Silk Road before AD 800’ in Susan Whitfield (ed.), Silk Road- Trade, Travel, War and Faith(exhibition catalogue),pp. 24-33 (London: British Library Publishing, 2004). Published in Chinese as 汪海岚（王越译）《一匹骆驼多少钱？— 公元800年之前的丝绸之路钱币新解》, 《西域文史》第三期（2009），175-185 页.

H. Wang (ed.), Sir Aurel Stein in the Times (London: Saffron Books, 2002)

John Falconer, Agnes Kelecsenyi, Agnes Karteszi and Lilla Russell-Smith (ed. by Eva Apor and Helen Wang), Catalogue of the Collections of Sir Aurel Stein in the Library of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (Budapest: Library of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and British Museum, 2002).

H. Wang, ‘Stein’s Recording Angel - Miss F. M. G. Lorimer’, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, Series 3, vol. 8, no. 2 (1998), pp. 207-28.

 
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