Michael Metcalf


David Michael Metcalf was a British academic and numismatist. He was the director of the Heberden Coin Room of the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, a fellow of Wolfson College and Professor of Numismatics at the University of Oxford. He held the degrees of MA, DPhil and DLitt from Oxford. He died in October 2018 at the age of 85.

Academic career

Metcalf's primary focus was on the early and high Middle Ages, Byzantine Empire, the Crusader states and the Balkans. He worked at the Heberden Coin Room of the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford from 1971 to 1999 and was the director of the Heberden Coin Room from 1982 to 1999. He was appointed as Professor of Numismatics at the University of Oxford in 1996 and retired in 1998; he was also a Fellow of Wolfson College, Oxford, from 1982 to 1998.
He served as President of the Royal Numismatic Society from 1994 to 1999 and led the editorial board of its journal The Numismatic Chronicle from 1974 to 1984.

Honours