Heenes Volker. Antike in Bildern. Illustrationen in antiquarischen Werken des 16. und 17. Jahrhundert

Tubingen: Stendal, 2003. — 213 p.Up until now research in the history of Classical Archaeology is conducted within the traditional context received from the 19th century. Johann Joachim Winckelmann is still considered to be the founding father of the field introducing scientific tools for the investigations of Antiquity. However, by rediscovering ancient Greek and Roman iconography, Winckelmann based his own research on achievements which had already been made by antiquarians of the 14th through to the 17th century. His own contribution would have barely been possible without these earlier publications, which introduced an approach to early “archaeology” for the understanding of the meaning of ancient images and their contextual reconstructions. Those early trials to “decipher” ancient iconography and to explain objects from Antiquity published in books of the 16th and 17th century and their contribution to archaeology are the subjects of the doctoral thesis.