Augusto Carlos Teixeira de Aragão • • • (15 June 1823 – 29 April 1903) was a Portuguese officer, doctor, numismatist, archaeologist and historian. As an officer of the Portuguese army, he retired with the rank of general. Teixeira de Aragão is considered one of the "fathers" of Portuguese numismatics. Biography He was the son of José Maria Teixeira de Aragão and his wife, Mariana Hermógenes da Silva. He graduated in medicine, having reached the position of surgeon-in-chief of the Portuguese Army. As a surgeon in the parish of Melides in the county of Santiago do Cacém, he participated with aiding the victims of the 1849 dysentery epidemic. From an early age, he devoted himself to collecting numismatics, which paired with his extraordinary intellectual activity and a friendship with the King Luis I of Portugal. This allowed him to delve in depth to this field of science. In the 1860s, he was one of the responsibles for the work of rediscovery of the archaeological site of the Roman town Balsa in Tavira. In 1867, he acted as Conservative of the Office of the Ajuda National Palace, and was responsible for organizing, cataloging and exhibition of the contents of the collection of the Ajuda Antiquities Museum. They assembled pieces of great value belonging to the treasury of the Portuguese Royal House, the extinct convents and individuals. During the performance of these functions, Teixeira de Aragão was entrusted with the task of bringing some of the objects of the Portuguese Royal Collection at the Exposition Universelle (1867) of Paris. The Commission de l'histoire du Travail of this exhibition attributed the gold medal to the collection. During the period of exposure, Teixeira de Aragão had the opportunity to get in touch with the world's most renowned personalities in the field of numismatics. In 1870, he published Descrição Histórica das Moedas Romanas Existentes no Gabinete Numismático de sua Majestade El-Rei O Senhor D. Luiz I. A year later, he was admitted as a corresponding member of the Brazilian Historical and Geographical Institute by the Commission of Archaeology and Ethnography. In 1874, he joined the Independence Historical Society of Portugal-SHIP, having occupied the post of vice-treasurer of the Central Committee of 1 December 1640. In 1875, went public with the first of three volumes of the monumental work of the Descrição Geral e Histórica das Moedas Cunhadas em Nome dos Reis, Regentes e Governadores de