Archive of Inscriptions of Macedonia and publication of epigraphic corpora and studies

The systematic engagement with ancient Greek and Latin inscriptions of Macedonia, in collaboration with the Ministry of Culture and the local Ephorates of Antiquities, was one of the earliest activities of the then Center, now Section of Greek and Roman Antiquity. Based on successive memoranda of collaboration with the Ministry of Culture (1981, 1984, 2019), the Archive of Inscriptions of Macedonia was established, one of the oldest research infrastructures of the Section. A result of the many years of work by past and current researchers and their collaborators, the Archive consists of the main epigraphic archive (for about 6,000 inscriptions, with bibliographic documentation for those published), the photographic archive (with approximately 15,000 photos, analog and digital), the squeezes archive (with approximately 3,500 squeezes), transcript archives, and various accompanying archival and documentation materials. The Archive is not an end in itself: its aim is the gradual publication of comprehensive epigraphic corpora for each geographical area—eight have been published to date—as well as the use of knowledge drawn from primary evidence in numerous individual or synthetic studies on the history, language, religion, institutions, economy, and society of ancient Macedonia. In this way, the program has been a pillar of the Institute’s international recognition in the field of ancient epigraphy, as it is the only Greek institution that systematically and over time publishes corpora of inscriptions.