Bror Emil Hildebrand (22February 1806 in Madesjö30August 1884) was a Swedish archaeologist,

numismatist A numismatist is a specialist, researcher, and/or well-informed collector of numismatics, numismatics/coins ("of coins"; from Late Latin , genitive of ). Numismatists can include collectors, specialist dealers, and scholar-researchers who use coi ...

and museum director. From 1837 to 1879 he was Custodian of Ancient Monuments and Secretary of the Royal Swedish Academy of Letters. From 1847 he was a member of the

Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences () is one of the Swedish Royal Academies, royal academies of Sweden. Founded on 2 June 1739, it is an independent, non-governmental scientific organization that takes special responsibility for promoting nat ...

, and from 1866 a member of the

Swedish Academy The Swedish Academy (), founded in 1786 by King Gustav III, is one of the Royal Academies of Sweden. Its 18 members, who are elected for life, comprise the highest Swedish language authority. Outside Scandinavia, it is best known as the body t ...

. In 1866, he founded the Swedish History Museum in

Stockholm Stockholm (; ) is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in Sweden by population, most populous city of Sweden, as well as the List of urban areas in the Nordic countries, largest urban area in the Nordic countries. Approximately ...

. In 1830 Hildebrand became reader in numismatics at the university of

Lund Lund (, ;"Lund"
(US) and ) is a city in the provinces of Sweden, province of Scania, southern Swed ...

. About this time he was also taught archaeology by C.J. Thomsen in nearby Copenhagen. This led to Hildebrand's introduction of Thomsen's famous

three-age system The three-age system is the periodization of human prehistory (with some overlap into the history, historical periods in a few regions) into three time-periods: the Stone Age, the Bronze Age, and the Iron Age, although the concept may also re ...

in Sweden. His main scholarly legacy lies within the field of Medieval Anglo-Saxon numismatics, where he produced pioneering catalogues and studies. Much of this work was indirectly due to agricultural reforms in Sweden that led to Viking Period silver coin hoards surfacing at a rate never seen before or after Hildebrand's day; the 1864 edition of Hildebrand's ''Anglo-Saxon coins in the Swedish Royal Coin Cabinet'' drew on the evidence of 64 Swedish hoards alongside other European finds to establish the basic chronology of the late Anglo-Saxon coinage, much of which has remained valid after more than a century of subsequent research. Hildebrand was the father of archaeologist Hans Hildebrand and teacher both to him and to archaeologist

Oscar Montelius Gustaf Oscar Augustin Montelius, known as Oscar Montelius (9September 18434November 1921) was a Swedish archaeologist who refined the concept of seriation, a relative chronological dating method. Biography Oscar Montelius refined the conce ...

References

1806 births 1884 deaths People from Nybro Municipality Swedish archaeologists Lund University alumni Swedish numismatists Members of the Swedish Academy Members of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences 19th-century Swedish scientists {{Sweden-archaeologist-stub