Hans-Jörg Kellner

Hans-Jörg Kellner (1920–2015) was a distinguished German provincial Roman archaeologist and numismatist. After serving in World War II and spending four years as a prisoner of war in the Soviet Union, he studied philosophy, prehistory, early history, numismatics, epigraphy, historical auxiliary sciences, and Bavarian regional history at the University of Munich. He completed his doctorate in 1953 with a dissertation on Roman coin finds from northern Raetia.

In 1960, Kellner became the director of the Prehistoric State Collection in Munich (now the Archaeological State Collection), where he oversaw the museum's modernization, including the opening of new departments in 1976. He held this position until his retirement in 1984. Over his career, Kellner authored more than 300 scholarly works, including 17 monographs, with a focus on provincial Roman archaeology, numismatics, and Near Eastern archaeology. His work Die Römer in Bayern became a standard reference, with its fourth edition published in 1995.

Kellner received numerous accolades, including the Federal Cross of Merit 1st Class and the Bavarian Order of Merit in 1990. He was the first honorary professor at the University of Passau and was awarded the Eligius Prize by the German Numismatic Society in 2005. Additionally, he was an honorary member of the Society for Archaeology in Bavaria.