T. Sam N. Moorhead
Finds Adviser for Iron Age and Roman coins
Overseeing the recording and
researching of Iron Age and Roman coins on the Portable Antiquities
Scheme database: www.finds.org.uk
Department: Portable Antiquities and
Treasure
Telephone: +44 (0)20 7323 8432
Email: smoorhead @ thebritishmuseum.ac.uk
Sam Moorhead taught Classics and Archaeology for many years
before joining the Museum in 1997 as Staff Lecturer for
Archaeology. He was on the team that made the award-winning
Virtually the Ice Age website for Creswell Crags, and he produced a
CD-Rom with Channel 4, Roman Journeys. Having worked in
interpretation for galleries and exhibitions, such as
Persia and Michelangelo, for three years, he
joined the Department of Portable Antiquities and Treasure in July
2006.
He has written about ancient and early mediaeval coins since
publishing the Ackland Art Museum collection at the University
North Carolina at Chapel Hill (1984). Since the early 1980s,
he has published Roman coin finds from Wiltshire. This was to be
the basis for his M.Phil thesis for the Insititute of Archaeology,
University College London, in 2001. He worked on the
excavations at Tel Jezreel (1992-6) where, in addition to working
on the coins and the Roman to Umayyad periods, he assisted in the
ceramic research which initiated the major reappraisal of Iron Age
chronology in the Levant. He also worked with the University
of East Anglia at San Vincenzo in the Molise and has published the
coins from the villa site (1997).
Presently, he works as a numismatist on the UEA/Butrint
Foundation excavations at Butrint in Albania where he is
responsible for the ancient coins. Thousands of coins have
been found on different parts of the site and he is currrently
working on the nummus economy of the fourth
to seventh centuries AD.
For the Portable Antiquities Scheme, his main responsibilities
are to ensure the quality of the records entered and to initiate
and carry out research on the data. Initial analysis has shown
that the database of 45,000 Roman coins contains highly important
assemblages which are both reliable and valid for research
purposes.
He serves on several archaeological and numismatic committees,
including the Royal Numismatic Society, and also is Senior Keeper
at the Palestine Exploration Fund for whom he has recently
republished The Wilderness of Zin by Leonard Woolley and
T. E. Lawrence.
Current British Museum projects
Research programmes for Iron Age and Roman coin finds recorded
on the Portable Antiquities Scheme database www.finds.org.uk
Future PAS Touring Exhibition planning
Coordinator for the Young Graduates for
Museums and Galleries programme
Previous British Museum projects
Co-curator of The Past from Above exhibition (Nov 2006
– Feb 2007)
Interpretation for exhibitions, including:
- Buried Treasure: Finding our Past (2003)
- Three Great Gifts (2003)
- Mummy: the Inside Story (2004-5)
- Sudan: Ancient Treasures (2004-5)
- Troyand Olympics (2004)
- Alexander Walker (2004)
- Africa2005 displays, including Made in Africa
- Columbus: Collector (2005)
- David Milne (2005)
- National Heritage Memorial Fund 25th Anniversary
(2005)
Forgotten Empire: the World of Ancient Persia(2005-6)
- Samuel Palmer (2005-6)
- Michelangelo: closer to the master (2006)
- Power and Taboo (2006-7)
Education and academic support for exhibitions and galleries,
including:
- Christianity in Roman Britain (2000)
- Gladiators and Caesars (2000)
- Agatha Christie and Archaeology (2001)
- Prehistory, Objects of Power (2002)
- Early Mediaeval Gallery (2002-3)
Organizer for Conferences at the British Museum:
- Herods and Nabataeans (2001)
- Rencontre Assyriologique (2003)
Other projects:
Academic researcher and project coordinator for CD-Rom, Journeys
in the Roman Empire (with Verulamium Museum and Channel 4)
Team member for award-winning Creswell Crags Virtually the Ice
Age website (www.creswell-crags.org.uk/virtuallytheiceage)
and Virtually the Ice Age CD-Rom
National Archaeology Days (1998-2002)
External fellowships/ honorary positions/ membership of professional bodies
Fellow of Goodenough College, Mecklenberg
Square, London
Trustee for the Association for Roman
Archaeology
Senior Keeper at The Palestine Exploration
Fund
Council for the Anglo-Israel Archaeological
Society
Council for Archaeology Abroad
Council for the Royal Numismatic Society
Examiner for A Level Archaeology, AQA
Editorial Committee for Heritage
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Publications
T. S. N. Moorhead, ‘Coins from the excavations at Butrint,
Diaporit and the Vrina Plain’ with S. Gjongcecaj and R. Abdy,
in I. L. Hanson and R. Hodges (eds.), The Roman Colony at
Butrint: an Assessment (Oxbow for the Butrint Foundation,
2007), pp. 78-94
T. S. N. Moorhead, 'The Genesis, Pursuit and Publication of the
Wilderness of Zin Survey', a new introduction to C. L. Woolley
and T. E. Lawrence, The Wilderness of Zin (Palestine
Exploration Fund and Stacey International, 2003), pp.
xv-xlvii
(Also general editor for this new edition and additional archival
material)
T. S. N. Moorhead, 'Roman coin finds from
Wiltshire', in P. Ellis (ed.) Roman Wiltshire and
after (Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Society
Monography, Devizes, 2001), pp. 85-105
T. S. N. Moorhead,'The Late Roman, Byzantine
and Umayyad Periods at Tel Jezreel', Tel Aviv, 24 (1997),
pp. 129-166
T. S. N. Moorhead, CD-Rom: Journeys in
the Roman Empire (The British Museum and Channel 4,
2001); academic researcher and project coordinator