Collage "Beyond the Archive"
Ancient history has almost completely disappeared from schools. Nevertheless, almost everyone knows iconic names and figures such as Hercules, Indiana Jones or Terra X. The effect can be traced on the cardboard cone on which student assistants from the Stern Collection have mounted a collage of various posters and film covers. The associated media are all in the archive's holdings, where they are being prepared for use in research, teaching and public outreach.
Sophie Dix, Sophia Lindemann / 2022
Object Collection "Screening Technology"
The projector of the American brand Bell & Howell, model Filmosound 1680, represents the social impact and relevance of film. The device was used by Tom Stern (1958-2016) to view 16mm films and show them under original conditions. The mounted reels belonged to a school media library that was dissolved in 2019. Together with the bottle and the toy figure, these objects were part of a multi-sensory presentation on 16 May 2023 in the event series A Matter of Taste: Wine - Object - Knowledge.
Tom Stern, Martin Lindner a. o. / ca. 1970-2023
Object collection "Films in the Archive"
In the Stern Collection, incoming data carriers are digitised in order to make the films available. However, the original media are also to be preserved and each requires its own storage conditions and playback equipment. The 16mm roll films in the metal boxes belonged to a disbanded school film collection. The VHS tapes and remote controls came from private donations. The last film with Tom Stern (1958-2016) was only completed after his death and given to us on DVD in 2020 by the director Enzio Edschmid (*1941).
Tom Stern, Enzio Edschmid a. o. / ca. 1980-2020
Object Collection "Preparatory Work"
For a scholarly investigation and mediation, one needs more than just the films themselves. The "Frobenius" workbook by Tom Stern (1958-2016) contains his research on a 1929 silent film about the ruined site of Great Zimbabwe. The main character is the German archaeologist and ethnologist Leo Frobenius (1873-1938). The other document comes from the reference library that the filmmaker and film scholar Kurt Denzer (1939-2021) had built up in Kiel. The flyer is emblematic of the indexing in the Stern Collection in Göttingen.
Tom Stern, Kurt Denzer, Martin Lindner / ca. 1995-2021
Ancient History Film Archive
This is what ancient Rome might have looked like - this is the message that antique films convey with their depictions of the past. Archaeological excavations have long been documented on film. Ancient historians give interviews for various television formats; journalists trace ancient travel routes. The era is also often used in commercials or instrumentalised in political image films.
What images of antiquity are created in the process? How and why is Greek, Germanic, Roman or Celtic history told? Since its foundation in 2017, the Stern Collection Film Archive for Ancient Studies has been a place where such questions are answered through research and long-term preservation of the material.
The collection goes back to the estate of archaeologist, film researcher and museum educator Tom Stern (1958-2016). Since then, donations have expanded the material and content of the collection, often beyond the film testimonies themselves. When it comes to scientifically classifying films and their impact, objects from the history of their creation and use are also part of the collection: a script, a projector or a performance programme.
