Jonathan Williams

Keeper

Working with colleagues to deliver the department’s programme.

Department: Prehistory and Europe

Telephone: +44 (0)20 7323 8209
Email: jwilliams @ thebritishmuseum.ac.uk

From 1993 to 2005, Jonathan was curator of Iron Age and Roman coins in the Department of Coins and Medals at the British Museum, with particular focuses on Roman Republican coins and history and the cultural interface between Romans and Britons in late pre-conquest Britain.

In 2006-7, he worked with colleagues across the Museum to co-ordinate the Museum’s international strategy, especially in Africa, China, and the Middle East. In 2007, he became Keeper of the Department of Prehistory and Europe, with overall responsibility for departmental staff, collections, programme, and planning.

Current British Museum projects

Curatorial Project Champion for the forthcoming Paul and Jill Ruddock Gallery of Medieval Europe 1050-1550, to open March 2009

Researching the historical and legal context of the British Museum's foundation as a statutory trust in 1753

Previous British Museum projects

Exhibitions:

HSBC Money Gallery, 1997, presenting the history of money though the Museum collection

Rebels, Pretenders, and Impostors, 1999, on the political use of coins, medals, and banknotes by aspirant leaders

From Alexander to Antony, 2000, celebrating the Hersh bequest of Macedonian and Roman Republican coins

Brief Lives: Changing Europe’s Currencies, 2002, looking at the surprisingly short history of the various national currencies that disappeared into the euro

External fellowships/ honorary positions/ membership of professional bodies

Fellow of the Royal Historical Society (www.rhs.ac.uk)

Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London (www.sal.org.uk)

Fellow of the Royal Numismatic Society (www.numismatics.org.uk)

Board Member, ICOM UK (www.mda.org.uk/icom-uk)

Publications

J. Williams, Beyond the Rubicon. Gauls and Romans in Republican Italy (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2001).

J. Williams, Money, A History, ed., with J. Cribb and E. Errington (London, British Museum Press 1997; also published in USA, and in Korean, Japanese, Greek, Hungarian and Polish translations; 2nd UK and US edn, ed. with C. Eagleton, 2007).

J. Williams, ‘New light on Latin in pre-conquest Britain’ Britannia 38 (2007), pp. 1-12.

J. Williams, ‘Coin-inscriptions and the origins of writing in pre-Roman Britain’ British Numismatic Journal 71 (2001), pp. 1-17.

J. Williams, LEGES ET IVRA P R RESTITVIT: a new aureus of Octavian and the settlement of 28-27 B.C.’ with J.W. Rich, Numismatic Chronicle 159 (1999), pp. 169-213.