The Institute of Greek and Roman Antiquity

Activities

The Institute for Greek and Roman Antiquity (KERA) is the youngest of the National Research Foundation's three Humanities institutes. It was founded in 1979 by the member of the Academy of Athens professor M. B. Sakellariou in order to foster systematic research on antiquity, especially in subjects and periods where scholarly neglect seemed to afford room for a Greek contribution at an international level. KERA's research projects today cover all aspects of Greek antiquity, from prehistory to the end of antiquity in the seventh century A.D. KERA has assigned high priorities to areas on the geographical peripheries of Hellenism, and to historical periods which have in the past been neglected.  Main activities and goals are the following:

• The revival and renewal of the infrastructure of classical studies through the systematic collection and editing in computer databases of source materials, including literary texts, but with particular attention to inscriptions and coins, and t he publication of these materials in collections ("corpora")
• The systematic investigation of research areas such as ancient ideology and art, technology and measurement, economy and social mobility
• The production of monographs, articles, and other studies.
• The training of young scholars
• The organization of conferences and the development of collaborative research programmes with Greek and foreign scholars and  foundations.

Study of the philological and epigraphical sources is supplemented through systematic archaeological investigation. Three geographically defined programmes have been set up:

- Northern Greece Programme
- Southern Greece Programme
- Hellenic East Programme

These programmes also cover various thematic projects based on KERA's own substantial archival holdings.

1. Publications archive covering the history and archaeology of ancient Macedonia, Thrace, Epirus and Thessaly, together with the Peloponnese and the Aegean islands in the Roman period;
2. Archive of the Greek and Latin inscriptions of Macedonia and Thrace;
3. Numismatic archive of Macedonia, Achaea and the Aegean islands;
4. Archive of the Greek and Latin inscriptions of southern Greece, principally the Peloponnese;
5. Archive of the archaeological sites of Achaea and Kea.

Studies based on these archives are published systematically in the Centre's own series, MELETEMATA, which now contains  66 volumes.

Future Plans

Future plans of the Centre include:
1. The creation of an International Centre for Greek Studies in collaboration with the other two humanistic institutes at the National Research Foundation. The long-term purpose of such a common action will be to reinforce cultural education and development and              international prominence
2. The development, by the three humanistic institutes at the National Research Foundation, of an umbrella-programme called 'Greek research without frontiers', with the aim to highlight and publicise the intellectual and artistic achievements of the Greek tradition, which        flourished across an immense geographical area, wherever Greeks lived and worked.

Achievements

One of the main achievements of KERA is the publication of scientific research on humanities with international appeal. KERA has a publication history of 25 years and besides articles published in international journals of research, the Center has produced 74  monographs (66 of which are published in MELETEMATA) and 6 epigraphical corpora. These publications have radically renewed our knowledge on ancient greek history in the geographical areas covered  by the institute's programmes.
KERA has been evaluated twice (2000 and 2005) as a Center of Excellence by international committees. In 2005 it received the second ranking among the research centers supervised by the General Secretariat for Research and Technology and the highest ranking among the centers of humanities. The researchers of KERA have been awarded prizes from other Greek and foreign research centers.

Services

The publications of KERA can be found in the Helios repository. Since 1995 KERA publishes TEKMERIA, a scientific journal, electronically accessible through    www.tekmeria.org/index.php/tekmiria

KERA has also contributed to the major digital thesaurus of primary sources (PANDEKTIS) with the collections of ancient Greek and Latin inscriptions from Upper Macedonia, Aegean Thrace and Achaia, and the bronze coinage of the Macedonian Kingdom.

Moreover, KERA assists the wider, academic community through projects such as ARGOS (Archaeological Greek Online System: http://argo.ekt.gr/).

KERA possesses a small specialist library (of ca. 11,000 volumes) which concentrates on areas covered by current research programmes.  The library's catalogue is accessible through http://argo.ekt.gr.

Contact information

Secretary:

210-7273673-4

kera@eie.gr