Ceiling and mural paintings are constitutive elements in the design of baroque interiors. Unlike all other forms of pictorial art, these truly three-dimensional artistic media define early modern architecture literally from above, through colourful and complex iconographic programmes: in ecclesiastical as well as secular environments, in residential palaces and ceremonial halls, churches and…
The Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum contains the Latin inscriptions from the entire space of the former Roman Empire in a geographical and systematic order; since its foundation by Theodor Mommsen, it has been the authoritative documentation of the epigraphic heritage of Roman antiquity. Today, the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum has about 180,000 inscriptions and supplementary volumes with plates…
Written sources are – like art and buildings – integral parts of the cultural heritage, whose preservation, indexing and provision are central social duties. The knowledge of the past is principally based on texts, that more or less accidentally escaped destruction. These records preserve the knowledge, the faith, the tales, the visions and dreams of the people. They give testimony of past…
The Swiss Inventory of Coin Finds (SICF) is an information and documentation centre which records and documents the numismatic sources – coin finds and relevant documents – from Switzerland and the Principality of Liechtenstein.
The Swiss Inventory of Coin Finds (SICF) was founded in 1992 by the Swiss Academy of Humanities and Social Sciences (SAHS). We have been located since 2015 at…
The research project “Runische Schriftlichkeit in den germanischen Sprachen / Runic Writing in the Germanic Languages (RuneS)” investigates the oldest writing system in the Germanic languages, the runic script. As a means of communication this script was used in different variants in large regions of Europe (with centres in what is now Germany and the Netherlands, in Great Britain and…
Human evolution is a story of expansions. During the last two million years the genus Homo spread from Africa into Asia and Europe in several waves of migration. New species developed and old groups became extinct (range expansions). As early as three million years ago, hominins had established new ways of dealing with their specific environment through culture. Stone tools produced with the help…