William E. Metcalf

William E. Metcalf, FSA (born December 16, 1947 – August 2, 2025) was an American numismatist, ancient historian, and former curator, who was an expert in the study of Roman coins. He is especially known for his pioneering work on Roman provincial coins and particularly the Roman cistophori of Asia Minor.

Education Each of his degrees was conferred by the University of Michigan: his A.B. in Latin, with distinction and highest honors, in 1969, his A.M. in classical studies in 1970, and his Ph.D. in classical studies in 1973. There, he was a student of the prominent numismatist Theodore V. Buttrey Jr.

He was a visiting professor at several institutions, including Columbia University, Princeton University, University of Padua, Bryn Mawr College, Rutgers University, and New York University. In 2018, the American Numismatic Society published a Festschrift in his honor; it was edited by Nathan T. Elkins and Jane DeRose Evans and is entitled Concordia Disciplinarum: Essays on Ancient Coinage, History and Archaeology in Honor of William E. Metcalf. He received the 2024 Archer M. Huntington Award and Medal from the American Numismatic Society, and delivered the Silvia Mani Hurter Lecture on "The Making of Roman Provincial Coinage (X).

Selected books The Cistophori of Hadrian (New York: American Numismatic Society, 1980).

The Silver Coinage of Caesarea in Cappadocia, Vespasian to Commodus (New York: American Numismatic Society, 1996).

The Later Republican Cistophori (New York: American Numismatic Society, 2017).

(as editor), The Oxford Handbook of Greek and Roman Coinage (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2012).