Institute of Historical Research, Section of Greek and Roman Antiquity

The Section of Greek and Roman Antiquity is the youngest of the National Research Foundation's three thematic Sections. 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. The section's research projects today cover all aspects of Greek antiquity, from prehistory to the end of antiquity in the seventh century A.D. the Section 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.

The research programmes also cover various thematic projects based on the section'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 Section's own series, MELETEMATA.

One of the main achievements of the Section is the publication of scientific research on humanities with international appeal. KERA has a publication history of 29 years and besides articles published in international journals of research, the Section has produced 181 monographs (69 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 Section's programmes.
The Section 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 Section have been awarded prizes from other Greek and foreign research centers.