About the Library

The independent study field of Classical Archaeology was established at the Charles-Ferdinand University in Prague in 1872, and its first professor was Otto Benndorf. In 1882, the university was divided into Czech and German sections, and the birth of Czech Classical Archaeology was led by Prof. Hynek Vysoký, who was appointed full professor in 1910. Only then was it possible to establish the Institute of Classical Archaeology at the Czech University, based in Prague’s Klementinum. After the Second World War, the Institute merged with the fields of Classical Philology and Ancient History, which formed the Department of Classical Antiquity. In the early 1990s, the Institute became independent again, with its own library. 

The Institute of Classical Archaeology Library holds a collection of nearly 16,000 books and journals, including monographs, encyclopaedias on the art and archaeology of prehistoric and ancient Greece and Italy, the Hellenistic empires after Alexander the Great, the Roman provinces, and the early Christian period, as well as relations with neighbouring areas such as Central Europe, the Black Sea, and South and Central Asia. Often, this is the only copy of a particular publication in the country. The journal collection contains 320 titles from 1824 to the present. Of the most recent and continuously updated journal production, the library has 40 titles published by major archaeological institutions in this country and Europe, as well as in the USA and West Asia. 

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