Before moving to Canada, Vincent and Olga Diniacopoulos acquired a large collection of antiquities. After settling in Montreal, they continued their activity of art dealers and collectors. In 2001, Queen’s Department of Classics and the Art Conservation Program acquired a large number of ancient pieces from the collection, including 627 Greek and Roman coins from different periods, still to be treated and identified.
In my research project, I am currently working on cataloguing and identifying all of the coins in the collection. The coins in the collection are the best way for students to gain firsthand knowledge with artifacts from a research perspective.
The study of ancient coins is one of the traditional fields of Classical archaeology because of their imagery, frequently complex and intricate in spite of the small space available, their direct connection to figures and events of ancient history and their use for civic and dynastic propaganda.
The majority of the coins identified thus far appear to have been minted in Alexandria in Egypt, a country where the Diniacopoulos family lived for a while and acquired a large part of their collection. In my poster, I aim to present the project and to discuss a few coins that have been already identified.
