DAVID WILLIAM MAC DOWALL (1930-2024)

David Mac Dowall, the numismatist, who has died aged 94 was, at various times, Assistant Keeper of Oriental Coins at the British Museum, Master of University College, Durham and Director of the North London Polytechnic (now the University of North London).

Mac Dowall's research into ancient coins of the Indian subcontinent, notably of the Indo-Greek Kingdom (c 200 BC-c 10 AD) , the Kushan Empire (c 30- c 375 AD), and the Shahis, a dynasty who governed the Kabul valley (in Afghanistan) and the old province of Gandhara from the decline of the Kushan empire, greatly influenced scholarly understanding of the subcontinent in those periods.

David William Mac Dowall was born on April 2 1930 in the West Derby suburb of Liverpool to William Mac Dowall and Lilian, née Clarkson, both teachers. From the Liverpool Institute he won a scholarship aged 16 to Corpus Christi College, Oxford, where he read Mods and Greats.

As a boy he collected coins on family holidays and he studied numismatics under Stanley Robinson, the Greek numismatist, and CHV Sutherland, the Roman numismatist and keeper of the Heberden Coin Room in the Ashmolean Museum. He went on to study at the British School at Rome.

He eventually published The Western Coinages of Nero as a monograph in 1979, providing a secure pattern and chronology for this elegant coinage, redolent of Nero's court, through a scientific study of the types and the dies used to produce the coins.

After National Service in the Royal Corps of Signals, Mac Dowall returned to Oxford to do a DPhil. In 1955 he joined the Civil Service and during this time his academic focus moved east to the coins of Alexander the Great, the Indo-Greeks, Kushans and Shahis.

After appointment in 1956 as Assistant Keeper of Oriental Coins at the British Museum, he learnt Arabic and Sanskrit. However, as a result of developing problems with his eyes, he returned to Whitehall, joining the Ministry of Education in 1960 and working for the University Grants Committee at a time of major university expansion.

To read the complete article, see:
David Mac Dowall, numismatist who traced the connections between Roman coins and India – obituary (https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/david-mac-dowall-numismatist-who-traced-the-connections-between-roman-coins-and-india-obituary/ar-AA1pGLJG)

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