New centre boosts classical studies

9:35am Thursday 26th April 2007

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A new centre for Classical and Byzantine studies is opening at Oxford University thanks to a donation from a Greek family.

The Stelios Ioannou School for Research in Classical and Byzantine Studies is the first purpose-built centre for Classical and Byzantine research.

It comes after a major donation, of more than £1m from the Greek Cypriot Ioannou family, in honour of the late Cypriot businessman and philanthropist Stelios Ioannou.

Lord Patten, the university's chancellor, said: "Thanks to the exceptional generosity and vision of the Ioannou family, Oxford is in good shape to build on past success."

The building in St Giles, which took two-and-a-half years to build, will also be used for outreach work. The new centre will house four research centres - including the Beazley Archive, one of the worlds largest collections of images in classical arts containing 250,000 photographs and 50,000 gem collections. Students and academics will also have access to the world's largest collection of paper impressions of Greek inscriptions.