Ancient History

Overview

Propylaeum offers several search options for subject information on ancient history: Catalogue entries are searchable for printed monographs and article titles from Germany and abroad. In addition, an electronic document delivery service (copies of articles by e-mail / delivery of books) and lists of recently published literature are available.
The user is furthermore given access to different types of electronic media, such as subject databases, e-journals, freely accessible internet sources on ancient history, a document server with the option of publishing monographs and articles free of charge, as well as direct access to digitized historical literature.

Definition of the Subject

In the field of classical studies Ancient History - in contrast to Classical Archaeology and Early History and Pre-History - is concerned primarily with the written legacy (inscriptions and texts surviving on other media) of the antique cultures of the Mediterranean. The time under research extends from the 3rd millennium BC to 565 AD, the time of the death of Emperor Flavius Petrus Sabbatius Iustianus. This means that there are some intersections with Egyptology owing to the evaluation of the Egyptian hieroglyphic texts. Some further common research interests are also shared with Classical Archaeology, e. g. in the interpretation of the Mycenaean culture of the bronze age, and with Classical Philology in the historical interpretation of antique literature. The geographic area of research encompasses all states of the Mediterranean region, Mesopotamia and the Nile delta. Apart from this also the history of the "greater area" of Greece and later on also of the Roman empire and its provinces, at the time of its greatest expansion under the reign of Emperor Marcus Ulpius Traianus, are researched. Since the 19th century research has focused more and more exclusively on the Greek and Roman history, taking account of the history of their "contact zones".

Ancient History as a Special Subject Collection of the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek Munich

The resources for the subject area of Ancient History in Propylaeum are supplied by the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek Munich (BSB). The Bayerische Staatsbibliothek Munich (BSB) has been responsible for the special subject collection 'Ancient History' within Classical Studies since 1949, commissioned by the German Research Foundation (DFG). Its main focus is on acquiring, cataloguing and supplying the information resources relevant from a scholarly perspective as comprehensively as possible, as well as integrating them in a central subject portal.