MITOS – A digital database of musical iconography and literary sources: History

The collection, documentation and cataloguing of iconographic evidence relating to music, dance and theatre performance and the use of digital technology to render this material accessible to wider audiences has been the driving forces behind the Archive of Musical Iconography and Literary Sources foundation and function since 1996.

Initial records of iconographic evidence consisted of handwritten cataloguing records of iconographic material from Greek and Roman antiquity, which were compiled by undergraduate students of the Department of Music Studies, as part of their diploma thesis on musical iconography. This practice constitutes to this day an important source of new material, while at the same time allows students to learn the disciplines of musical iconography and practice documentation principals of iconographic material.

The fundamental cataloguing principles of these first records are evident in the design of the Archive’s digital database, which was soon created using Omnis software and received its first entry, in May 1996.  During the first years, cataloguing activity centered upon musical iconography of ancient Greece and Rome using material from a variety of published sources. Today, the digital database of the Archive of Musical Iconography consists of over 10.000 entries related to Greek music, theater and dance. In its present form the Archive’s database material includes iconographic sources, original musical instruments and literary sources originating from Greece, or Greek influenced areas. This material covers a wide chronological span that extents from prehistoric times, to Greek and Roman Antiquity, Byzantine and post-byzantine era to modern times.