Digital LIMC

The purpose of this entity affiliated with the University of Basel is to continue and maintain the image and data collections generated by the LIMC and ThesCRA publications and to digitally (database) process them for teaching and research.

The wealth of myths and legends we have inherited from antiquity, which we refer to as classical mythology, constitutes an essential element of our cultural heritage. The study of their pictorial representations is the main objective set by the LIMC Foundation, an internationally oriented body under Swiss law, founded in Geneva in 1972 and based in Basel since 1983. Its first task was the preparation and publication of the Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae (LIMC) (1981-1999 and Supplement 2009). This work subsequently found its expansion through the Thesaurus Cultus et Rituum Antiquorum (ThesCRA) (Volumes I-V: 2004-2006; Volumes VI-VIII: 2011-2012; Index, 2014), which focuses on the cultic and ritual domains.

Link to Digital LIMC

The LIMC Foundation was officially dissolved on March 31, 2014. Its archives and databases were handed over to the University of Basel. The latter will maintain and further develop them in the future. The University of Basel will continue to make the digital archives of the Foundation for LIMC available.

Databases and image rights

The databases made available on this homepage allow online consultation and retrieval of approximately 50,000 monuments on ancient iconography in five languages (German, English, French, Italian, Modern Greek).

The images will be made available progressively as soon as permission is granted by the owners of the reproduction rights.

The copyright of the images in the database belongs to the respective owner of the objects, not to the University of Basel. The further use of the images made available here for any purpose is illegal and only permitted with the permission of the respective copyright holder.

LIMC databases:

■ LIMC starts from text data and allows precise and complex queries with a detailed search mask.
■ Iconiclimc provides direct access to images with associated metadata.
■ LIMC-France provides access to the database of the LIMC French team.