Herbert Cahn

Herbert Adolf Cahn ( born January 28, 1915 in Frankfurt am Main, † April 5, 2002 in Basel ) was a German classical archaeologist, numismatist, coin and antique dealer, since 1949, he was a Swiss citizen.

Life

Herbert A. Cahn came from a Frankfurt Münzhändlerfamilie. His grandfather Emil Adolph Cahn (1840-1918) founded 1874 in Frankfurt a Münzhandlung who later also performed significant auctions. His father Ludwig Theodor Cahn (1877-1924) and his brother Julius Cahn (1871-1935) initiated the paternal Münzhandlung together after the First World War. Already as a student he worked in the family business and created significant sales catalogs coin collections. He began studying classical archeology, ancient history and classical philology at the University of Frankfurt, after the forced emigration to Basel in 1933, he continued it there, and his doctorate in 1940 Dr. phil. In Frankfurt, his first teacher Ernst Langlotz in Basel Ernst puddle was.

In addition to the coin dealers, however, Herbert Cahn was always scientifically connected to the ancient Numismatics and Classical Archaeology. Thus he became in 1965 a lecturer at the University of Heidelberg from 1971 honorary professor. Here he led numerous students into the world of ancient coins. Since 1983 he has taught at the University of Freiburg.

With Karl Schefold 1956 he was involved in the founding of the Association of Friends of Ancient Art in 1960 at the Basel exhibition "Masterpieces of Greek Art ", from the founding of the Antiquities Museum Basel emerged, which opened in 1966. From 1970 to 1986 he was a board member of the Swiss Numismatic Society, 1949-1964 editor of the Swiss coin sheets, 1981-1987 of the Swiss Numismatic Review.

His main interest was the Greek Numismatics, standard works are about today his two monographs on the coins of Naxos and Knidos. In addition, however, he also published many other areas of ancient numismatics, such as basic work on coins of the 4th century AD, on Greek vases and other areas of ancient art.

Herbert Cahn always saw the ancient coins as part of the ancient art, saw in numismatics also a part of classical archeology. Privately, he collected fragments of ancient vases, one of the largest and most important collections in the world, which gives an overview of the whole ancient vases production.