Berliner Antike-Kolleg

The New within the Old

The cultures of the ancient world are more contemporary than they seem. Many of these cultures developed profound bodies of knowledge that can be applied to contemporary problems. Moreover, in antiquity large portions of the world were already closely networked, and the transformations undergone by this network continue even today to shape our definition of ourselves as Europeans and our perception of regions outside of Europe. And this is what makes the ancient studies relevant.

The Berliner Antike-Kolleg is a new institution rooted in the great Berlin tradition of research on the ancient world, an institution that represents a highpoint in this tradition. It unites three institutions:

• The Berlin Graduate School of Ancient Studies (BerGSAS) of the Humboldt-Universität and the Freie Universität with its unique five doctoral programmes paves new ways in graduate studies.
• The Research Center of Ancient Studies (RCAS) is committed to innovative interdisciplinary and inter-institutional research.
• Repositories – Editions – Materials (REM) will promote the development of a competence for long-term safeguarding of ancient studies data.

Interdisciplinary cooperation between related disciplines and collaboration between the natural sciences and the humanities are revitalizing the way in which inter-institutional work has been conducted since the heyday of German ancient studies in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Then the extraordinary concentration of academic expertise and original artifacts made Berlin a center for the ancient studies. To this day, specialists in nearly all regions, periods and research methods continue to work here; the Berlin collections are unique throughout the world.

Six large Berlin institutions with diverse traditions and distinct social mandates collaborate  in the Berlin Antike-Kolleg, where they profit from the energy they create together.

• Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften
• Deutsches Archäologisches Institut
• Freie Universität Berlin
• Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
• Max-Planck-Institut für Wissenschaftsgeschichte
• Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Staatliche Museen Berlin

The Antike-Kolleg will be located in the Museum’s Courts, under the umbrella of the Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz.