Austrian Archaeological Institute

The Österreichisches Archäologisches Institut stands in Vienna, a research body of the Austrian Academy of Sciences. It carries out archaeological work across the ancient Mediterranean and former Habsburg lands. The institute began in 1898 under Professor Otto Benndorf, who had started excavations at Ephesos three years earlier. Early branches were set up in Constantinople, Smyrna and Athens, where scholars such as Josef Keil and Adolf Wilhelm worked. Carnuntum in Austria soon became another permanent focus alongside Ephesos. The institute’s history reflects wider changes in central Europe. After the First World War it was reduced in scale, and in 1938 it became a branch of the German Archaeological Institute. After 1945 excavations resumed at the Magdalensberg and Ephesos, and a new office opened in Cairo in 1973. In 1981 it regained independent status before being brought into the Academy of Sciences in 2016. Since 2021 it has housed the Institute for Cultural History of Antiquity and the Institute for Oriental and European Archaeology, making it the largest archaeological research centre in Austria. Visitors to the building, once the Vienna Postal Savings Bank, now find a science campus with modern laboratories. Inside, displays show finds from projects in Carnuntum, Ločica and Tell el-Dab’a. The institute’s library holds reports from decades of fieldwork across Europe and the eastern Mediterranean. Names like Ephesos, Limyra and Aigeira appear on maps and in case drawers, marking sites where Austrian archaeologists continue to work.