For his excellence in Numismatics and Archeology
Professor Osmund Bopearachchi, a Sri Lankan historian and Numismatist, is Awarded the Lifetime Achievement for his speciality in standardizing the coinage of the Indo-Greek and Greco-Bactrian kingdoms and also for his Award Winning Publications in Archaeology.
Prof. Bopearachchi was born on April 4th, 1949, in Negombo, Sri Lanka. He received his Bachelor of Arts Degree from the University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka, and B.A. honors, M.A., M.Phil., PhD from the Paris 1 Sorbonne University, and a Higher Doctorate (Habilitation)
from the Paris 4 Sorbonne University.
He is the Emeritus Director of Research of the French National Center for Scientific Research (C.N.R.S.-E.N.S. Paris), former Adjunct Professor of Central and South Asian Art, Archaeology, and Numismatics, at the University of California, Berkeley, and former Visiting Professor and Member of the Doctoral School of the Paris-Sorbonne University.
He is a numismatist, art historian, and archaeologist. He is the author of 14 books, 5 Exhibition Catalogs, two translations of texts, editor of 6 volumes, author of 145 research articles, nine prefaces, 16 book reviews in reputed international journals, and two databases. In addition, he has read 93 papers at international colloquia, presented 292 conferences in 65 cities, and carried out archaeological missions in 29 countries.
He is the recipient of many prestigious international awards. The French Academy of Inscriptions and BellesLettres bestowed the most prestigious awards on five of his books, of which “The George Perrot Medal” is the most distinguished one. In addition, he was raised to the position of the “Order of Academic Palms” by the French government and the “Order of Constantine the Great” by the Greek government.
He recently published a book on Gandhāran art entitled: When West Met East: Gandhāran Art Revisited (Manohar, Delhi, 2020) based on a selection of hitherto unknown masterpieces from Gandhāran and Greater Gandhāran dispersed in museums and private collections in Japan, Europe, Canada and the United States of America. In addition, he is currently working on a new catalog of Graeco-Bactrian and Indo-Greek Coins.
Sri Lanka Foundation International would like to Thank and Acknowledge Prof. Bopearachchi for his valuable contribution to the Scientific Research in Numismatics and Archaeology.
