Danish diaries of Palmyra

Abstract

Many things that we now call ‘archaeological archives’ are actually personal collections of documentation made and amassed by archaeologists, some of which have found their way into institutions. This is indeed the case for the collections of Harald Ingholt (1896–1985), a Danish archaeologist and philologist who worked at Palmyra in the 1920s and 1930s and had a long career that was spent mostly in the USA at Yale University, studying Syrian and Gandharan sites. Ingholt's field diaries, published in the volumes under review, make up part of a collection which he donated, following his retirement, to the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek in Copenhagen in the early 1980s; that collection also includes his personal reference material, known as ‘The Ingholt Archive’. Comprising sheets with Palmyrene images glued to them, the Archive is planned for separate publication by Brepols in the near future.