Purpose and Structure of the ThesCRA

The ThesCRA (Thesaurus Cultus et Rituum Antiquorum) documents the evidence of classical antiquity concerning religious rituals and makes them accessible for research and to a wider public. Until its publication, there was no work of reference of this kind with systematic information on the cults and rites of classical antiquity. The ThesCRA covers equally  the iconographic representations of cults and rites, the literary sources and the realia, treating images, monuments and texts on the same level. The ThesCRA presents the current state of research including the unsolved problems. Scholars from different fields have collaborated in the ThesCRA.

The ThesCRA is not an alphabetic lexicon; it is arranged according to groups of themes each consisting of distinct chapters. Its main structure shows three levels:

At present ThesCRA consists of five volumes and one index, published between 2004 and 2006 by the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles:

Volume I: XXII-450 p., 33 illustrations, 139 plates (2004);
Volume II: XXIV-507 p., 50 illustrations, 117 plates (2004);
Volume III: XX-434 p., 37 illustrations, 72 plates (2005);
Volume IV: XX-487 p., 202 illustrations, 60 plates (2005);
Volume V: XXII-503 p., 39 illustrations, 67 plates (2005);
Index: XVI-169p. (2006).

153 authors from 17 countries have collaborated on ThesCRA with contributions in French, English, Italian and German.

The plan of the ThesCRA is as follows: 

 Index

 A third, synthetic level of  conclusions will be dedicated to acts of rite and cult and offer a synopsis of religious activities in everyday life. This will focus on the different periods of life and on the main religious activities of individuals or groups. A special aim is to show how the dynamic and static elements of cults and rites, analysed in the previous levels, could be combined according to the respective circumstances of life.

As was already the case in the previous levels, the chapters of the third level will not deal with the material in an exhaustive way but rather with a selective approach. They will not contain new catalogues except in the cases where the documentation given in the previous levels may seem to be insufficient for a synopsis at this level. Plates will be included.

The geographical and chronological boundaries of ThesCRA are given by the historical phenomenon and the conception of classical antiquity. The roots and parallels of certain phenomena in earlier and neighbouring cultures can however not be overlooked (especially in the Minoan-Mycenean world, the Near East and Egypt). Influence and heritage of this kind will be presented in summaries but will not be systematically documented.

The ThesCRA is a publication of the Foundation for the LIMC. Its financing is secured by the institutions that are members of the Foundation Council. The essential scholarly material is compiled by the scholars responsible for the different chapters. In this process the documentation already existing in the archives of the Foundation is used - the result of more than a quarter-century of international collaboration of the member states of the International Scientific Committee. The realization of the publication is supervised by the Editorial Board, the editing is done in the Central Editorial Office in Basel with the collaboration of the three connected editorial offices in Athens, Paris and Heidelberg/Würzburg.

In 2001 the Foundation for the LIMC organized a conference on cults and rites and subsequently published its results in:
Linant de Bellefonds, P. (ed.), Rites et cultes dans le monde antique, Cahiers de la Villa «Kérylos», no 12 (2002).

In collaboration with the Departement Altertumswissenschaften und Orientalistik of the University of Basel, the Foundation for the LIMC organized a second conference whose papers are at present in the press:
Religion: Lehre und Praxis. Akten des Kolloquiums, Basel, 22. Oktober 2004, Archaiognosia, Supplementband 6 (2008).