Digital Collections

Since 1881 the American School has amassed a large collection of both published and unpublished information. This includes books, journals, photographs, notebooks, personal papers, maps, and scientific data sets. More and more of these resources are now in electronic form. This page provides a central point of access to the major digital collections of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens.

You can use the index of categories to the left to browse the collections, or search using the toolbar above. Material which has been published is made completely available to the public. Material which is unpublished is only available to researchers who have already obtained the necessary permission to study the material in person.

We also provide a research interface for this website which can be toggled by selecting the "Research Interface" or "ASCSA interface" links in the header. This research interface utilizes your browser's full window size and will allow you to view images and notebook pages at the highest possible resolution (when signed in).

Alison Frantz Photographic Collection, 1881-1940
The Alison Frantz Photographic Collection contains images by the photographer and archaeologist Alison Frantz (1903 - 1995). The photographs mainly depict Archaic and Classical sculpture, Greek archaeological sites and various finds. The collection was created between the late 1940’s and the early 1970’s. The images have illustrated numerous publications, among them: Korai, Greek Archaic Maidens (Gisela M. A. Richter, 1968); The Archaic Gravestones of Attica (Gisela M. A. Richter, 1961); Olympia, The Sculptures of the Temple of Zeus (Bernard Ashmole and Nicholas Yalouris, 1967) and The Parthenon Frieze (Martin Robertson and Alison Frantz, 1975).

Archaeological Photographic Collection, 1881–1940
The Archaeological Photographic Collection includes 3,655 items documenting the field activities of the American School from its establishment in 1881 until WW II, with rare and valuable images recording the restoration work of architect Nikolaos Balanos at the Erechtheum on the Acropolis in the early 20th century, the identification of the Choregic Monument of Nikias on the South Slope of the Acropolis, the discovery of the Sanctuary of Eros and Aphrodite on the North Slope of the Acropolis in the 1930s, the excavations at the site of Dionysus in northern Attica, the restoration of the Lion of Amphipolis, as well as general views of Athens.

Athenian Agora Excavations
Excavations in the Athenian Agora are formally published through the Athenian Agora monograph series and articles in Hesperia, the journal of the American School. A number of digital resources are also made available free-of-charge for teaching and resource purposes. With the support of the Packard Humanities Institute (PHI) the Agora excavation have been involved over the last decade in an ambitious program of digitizing older materials and experimenting with the use of new technology to record continuing excavations. The Excavations Databases provide a valuable research tool for scholars far beyond the Stoa of Attalos.

Corinth Excavations
The archive from nearly continuous excavation spanning three centuries is vast and this website provides on-line access to a significant portion of it. Excavation journals, photographs and architectural drawings contained herein document not only the history and archaeology of Ancient Corinth, but reveal much about the modern village, its inhabitants and the excavators. Using day journal diaries, archaeologists began recording finds, monuments and excavation, as well as their daily life in Greece. Often their thoughts and personalities are evident on the pages. More recent notebooks are more ‘objective’ and standardized but offer no less to the interested reader. Photographs, including an extensive collection of glass plate negatives, focused on deep excavation trenches, ancient monuments, and magnificent objects, but also shed light on the workmen and the changing landscape of Ancient Corinth. The collection of drawings includes maps, monuments and archaeological renderings, and provides glimpses into ancient topography, architecture and construction. The scanning and cataloguing of a quarter million digital objects was made possible by the Greek Ministry of Culture and the Third Information Society program of the European Union.

Dorothy Burr Thompson Collection, 1923-1960
This collection includes 3,176 items. Dorothy Burr Thompson (1900–2001), who is known to the world of Greek archaeology as an excavator and leading expert in ancient terracottas, donated her photographic collection to the American School of Classical Studies at Athens. The collection, which covers the period 1923–1955, includes images from Thompson’s travels in Greece, Turkey and Italy. In addition to the archaeological information, some of which has been lost or forgotten, the collection is a mosaic of information about architecture, landscapes and customs that no longer exist.

Ion Dragoumis Correspondence Collection, 1895-1920
The database of Ion Dragoumis’ Correspondence includes 11,409 digital images of letters. Ion St. Dragoumis served initially as a diplomat in Istanbul, Rome and St. Petersburg, before becoming member of the Greek Parliament. He was assassinated in 1920. The collection, which comprises 2,827 incoming letters and a small number of outgoing ones, covers the period 1895–1920. The Macedonian struggle, the Balkans and the Ottoman Empire, the Greek language and the use of the Demotic, are some of the issues that appear in the correspondence.

Photographs from the Historical Archives
This collection features 1,152 images which were previously dispersed amongst the historical collections of the Archives in the Gennadius Library. These images are of great interest since they document public and private moments of the Greek history, from the late 19th to the early decades of the 20th century. The photos originated from the rich archive of the Dragoumis family, the papers of Athanasios Souliotis, Nikolaos Mavris and others, as well as from the papers of author Stratis Myrivilis who fought in the Balkan Wars and the Greek-Turkish War (1919–1922).