Joe Cribb

Joe Cribb is a numismatist, specialising in Asian coinages, and in particular on coins of the Kushan Empire. His catalogues of Chinese silver currency ingots, and of ritual coins of Southeast Asia were the first detailed works on these subjects in English.

Cribb joined the Department of Coins and Medals, British Museum, in the early 1970s, and eventually became Keeper of the Department of Coins and Medals (2003–2010), before his retirement in 2010. During his time at the Museum he curated a major exhibition Money: from Cowrie Shells to Credit Cards (1986), developed the Museum's first Money Gallery, and contributed to many other exhibitions and catalogues.

Cribb has specialist knowledge of all Asian coinages. He started looking at Chinese coins, and wrote the first English-language catalogue on Chinese silver ingots, and then focussed on the pre-Islamic coinages of India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Kashmir and Afghanistan. He is particularly renowned for his research on the coins of the Kushan kings of ancient South and Central Asia (first to fourth centuries AD).

In addition to his work at the British Museum, Cribb was President of the Royal Numismatic Society (2005–9) and is Secretary General of the Oriental Numismatic Society (2011-).

He is also a Trustee of the Ditchling Museum, where his grandfather Joseph Cribb was a sculptor, and coordinator of the Eric Gill Society.

Cribb was presented with the Award of the Hirayama Silk Road Institute, Kamakura (1997), the Medal of the Royal Numismatic Society (1999), and the Huntington Medal of the American Numismatic Society (2009). A volume of papers in his honour was presented to him upon his retirement from the British Museum.

A selection of his publications are given below:

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