Project

Content - Fotos

The Photographic Database alongside the Epigraphic Text Database, the Geographic Database and the Bibliographic Database is a constituent part of EDH.

• The holdings, digitised images and metadata, amount to approximately at present to more than 43.000 images and records ( List of all photographers).
• The search functions of the Epigraphischen Fotothek allow direct access to the photographs in the form of low resolution jpg-files. If corresponding records exist in the Epigraphic Text Database there is a direct link to the related photographs.

To a large extent the material is a result of the yield of research travels, which were undertaken by the director and research associates of the research project or of the Heidelberg Seminars of Ancient History and Epigraphy. The photographic library has profitted to a no lesser degree from generous gifts made by individual scholars and institutions: Prof. Dr. Silvio Panciera / Istituto Epigrafico (Inscriptions of Rome), Prof. Dr. Marjeta Šašel Kos ( Inscriptions of the Slovenian National Museum Ljubljana), Prof. Dr. Ioan Piso (Inscriptions of the Roman province Dacia), Prof. Dr. Juan Manuel Abascal Palazón (Inscriptions from Carthago Nova), Prof. Dr. Leszek Mrozewicz ( Inscriptions from Novae), Dr. Charles V. Crowther (Inscriptions of the Ashmolean Museum Oxford), Dr. Ingrid Weber-Hiden ( Inscriptions from Carnuntum and further findspots in the Austrian part of the Roman province Pannonia superior).

In the context of a cooperation agreement funded by the Seminar für Alte Geschichte und Epigraphik of Heidelberg University between itself and the Historischen Seminar (Abt. Alte Geschichte) of Osnabrück University a substantial part of the photographic material there has been digitized (2007/08). These images have been entered into the Epigraphische Fotothek.

Alongside the presence of digital images stored as high resolution tif-files conventional archiving of the photographic material by EDH since the 1980s as slides, negatives and prints made it possible to provide high quality reproduction on demand (since November 2021 at the University Archive of Heidelberg University, signature: Rep 244).

In the context of diverse cooperation networks between EDH and other elsewhere epigraphic text and image databases there are some 15.500 at times reciprocal links between the search results of the Epigrapic Text Database and the corresponding records in external databases. The photographic archives of the following institutions have participated in this joint venture: The Spanish branch of CIL, the U.S. Epigraphy Project, the web site Ubi erat Lupa and The Inscriptions of Philippi. - Furthermore there are almost 7.000 images of inscriptions of the Italic regions, which have been made available directyl through EDR; the search results in EDR thus show, as along as they are present, the corresponding photographic material of the Photographic Database.

The digital image material of the Photographic Database is with a few exceptions directly accessible. Hitherto it had been the policy that pictures with unclear utilization rights were presented only as thumbnail images. In 2012 as a result of ever increasing requests from the scientific community and with the support of the Heidelberg Academy of the Sciences this policy has been changed. The approval of the institutions which house the monuments and their inscriptions is assumed for the non commercial use for research purposes (otherwise permission should be sought). Rights beyond those just mentioned may not be assumed and require special permission of the photographer and the museum.