Berliner Antike-Kolleg

Berlin was once and is now again a center for studies of antiquity. The Antike-Kolleg takes up this tradition. Specialists in nearly every region and period of the cultures of the ancient world do their research here.

The Berliner Antike-Kolleg (Berlin College of Ancient Studies) is an interdisciplinary institution for research on antiquity. It combines a graduate school, a research center, and a research portal, which addresses methods for long-term securing and maintaining of data. It bundles the competences of institutions and scholars in incomparable concentration.

Two universities and four nonuniversity scholarly institutions jointly support the college: the Freie Universität Berlin, the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (Humboldt University in Berlin), the Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften (Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities), the Deutsches Archäologisches Institut (German Archaeological Institute), the Max-Planck-Institut für Wissenschaftsgeschichte (Max Planck Institute for the History of Science), and the Stiftung Preussischer Kulturbesitz (Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation).

By establishing the college, they have created a solid structure to pursue excellent, cross-disciplinary research on antiquity. They are able to benefit from Berlin’s wealth of materials in ancient studies and expertise in the discipline, which are unique in the world. The collections of the Stiftung Preussischer Kulturbesitz in particular preserve many original relics of ancient culture and architecture, which are unique in the world. At Berlin’s universities and nonuniversity institutions, the scientific expertise of the heyday of ancient studies lives on.

The Berliner Antike-Kolleg was founded in 2011. It evolved from the cluster of excellence TOPOI: The Formation and Transformation of Space and Knowledge in Ancient Civilizations. It is housed in the Archäologisches Zentrum (Archaeological Center) opposite the Museumsinsel (Museum Island). Hermann Parzinger, the president of the Stiftung Preussischer Kulturbesitz, is a member of its board of directors and on the board of the college.

Berlin Graduate School of Ancient Studies (BerGSAS)

An interdisciplinary approach to research and the particular strengths of the individual institutions should be brought to bear in educating future scholars as well. That is why the Berliner Antike-Kolleg founded the Berlin Graduate School of Ancient Studies (BerGSAS). It provides a framework for five PhD programs located at its two member universities in Berlin.

The Stiftung Preussischer Kulturbesitz is involved in two of the graduate school’s programs: “Material Culture and Object Studies (MaCOS)” and “Languages and Cultures of the Silk Road”. It provides students with access to original objects at the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin (National Museums in Berlin) and to the collections of texts from the Silk Road in the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin (Berlin State Library). In addition, the training focuses on issues of conservation, archiving, museum studies, information technology, and legal issues in connection with cultural assets.