Osmund Bopearachchi is an historian and numismatist

Numismatics

Numismatics is the study or collection of currency, including coins, tokens, paper money, and related objects. While numismatists are often characterized as students or collectors of coins, the discipline also includes the broader study of money and other payment media used to resolve debts and the...

 who has been specializing in the coinage of the Indo-Greek and Greco-Bactrian kingdoms.

Originally from Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka is a country off the southern coast of the Indian subcontinent. Known until 1972 as Ceylon , Sri Lanka is an island surrounded by the Indian Ocean, the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait, and lies in the vicinity of India and the...

, he finished his studies in France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

. In 1983 he joined a team of the CNRS at the Ecole Normale Supérieure

École Normale Supérieure

The École normale supérieure is one of the most prestigious French grandes écoles...

 to further his studies. In 1989, he became Research Specialist (Chargé de Recherche) at CNRS.

In 1991, Osmund Bopearachchi published an extensive work on Indo-Greek and Greco-Bactrian coinage, Monnaies gréco-bactriennes et indo-grecques. Catalogue raisonné (400 pages), which became the reference in its field. His conclusions are based on extensive numismatic analysis (find places, overstrikes, monograms, metallurgy

Metallurgy

Metallurgy is a domain of materials science that studies the physical and chemical behavior of metallic elements, their intermetallic compounds, and their mixtures, which are called alloys. It is also the technology of metals: the way in which science is applied to their practical use...

, styles), classical

Classical antiquity

Classical antiquity is a broad term for a long period of cultural history centered on the Mediterranean Sea, comprising the interlocking civilizations of ancient Greece and ancient Rome, collectively known as the Greco-Roman world...

 writings, and India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

n writings and epigraphic evidence. The book received the Prix Mendel (Mendel prize) for Historical Research in 1992.

Books

• O. Bopearachchi, Monnaies gréco-bactriennes et indo-grecques, Catalogue raisonné, Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, 1991, 459 p., 69 pl.
• O. Bopearachchi, Catalogue of Indo-Greek, Indo-Scythian and Indo-Parthian Coins of the Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C., 1993, 140 p., 41 pl.
• O. Bopearachchi & A. ur Rahman, Pre-Kushana Coins in Pakistan, Iftikhar Rasul IRM Associates (Pvt.) Ltd., Karachi, 1995. 237 p., 76 pl.
• O. Bopearachchi & W. Pieper, Ancient Indian Coins, Brépols, Turnhout, Belgique, 1998, Indicopleustoi, vol. 11, 289 p., 59 pl.
• O. Bopearachchi, Sylloge Nummorum Graecorum. Graeco-Bactrian and Indo-Greek Coins. The Collection of the American Numismatic Society, Part 9, New York, 1998, 94 p., 76 pl.
• O. Bopearachchi & R.M. Wickremesinhhe, Ruhuna. An Ancient Civilisation Re-visited. Numismatic and Archaeological Evidence on Inland and Maritime Trade, 1999, Colombo, 140 p., 3 maps, 36 pl.
• O. Bopearachchi, An Indo-Greek and Indo-Scythian Coin Hoard from Bara (Pakistan), Seattle, 2003, 104 p. 33 pls.
• O. Bopearachchi & Philippe Flandrin, Le Portrait d’Alexandre. Histoire d’une découverte pour l’humanité, Édition du Rocher, Monaco, 2005, 267 p. 8 pls.
• O. Bopearachchi, The Pleasure Gardens of Sigiriya. A New Approach, Godage Book Emporium, Colombo, 2006. p. 80. (Sinhalese translation, Godage Emporium, Colombo, 2008).