About the Journal
Ókor. A Journal on Ancient Cultures was founded in 2002 and has been published by Gondolat since 2005. From the very beginning, our mission has remained unchanged: to present the results of scholarship on the ancient world not only to specialists but also to a wider readership—at the highest academic standards, yet in an accessible and engaging form. Over the past two decades, the journal has become one of the key platforms of classical studies in Hungary. Our numerous thematic issues—such as Nation and Antiquity, The Ancient Near East, Modern Ovid, Ancient Ruins, Current Assyriology, Myths in Image and Word, Animals in Egypt, Underworld Imagery, Border, City, Animal and many more—demonstrate how fruitful the study of antiquity can be at the intersections of disciplines and epochs. They also highlight the importance of exploring both the reception of antiquity and its contemporary cultural relevance.
Ókor has always embraced a dual role: it is a scholarly journal and, at the same time, a forum for communicating research to a broader audience. When a philologist, historian, archaeologist or Egyptologist writes in such a way that their argument can be followed by colleagues from other fields as well as by non-specialists, they are shaping a common language of classical scholarship. This aspiration defines the spirit of the journal. Our cultural position is also informed by the tradition of the Hungarian classical scholarship’s ‘golden age’ in the interwar period, when Károly Kerényi and his contemporaries were able to achieve international excellence while also enriching Hungarian intellectual life with new impulses. It was in recognition of this very tradition that the Hungarian Society for Classical Studies awarded the Marót Károly Prize to Ókor in 2011. The journal works in close cooperation with scholars from a wide range of institutions—university departments, research institutes, museums, professional associations, and independent workshops. Through its editors, it also maintains strong ties with Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE), to which our new website is institutionally connected.
Antiquity continues to fascinate modern audiences—sometimes through its strangeness, sometimes through its familiarity, and often through the intriguing interplay of the two. Archaeology, literature, art, music and theatre all offer multiple points of connection to the ancient world, and it is part of our mission to interpret and bring these together. We pay particular attention to visual culture: each issue contains rich illustrative material, and its four colour covers evoke the diverse and inspiring world of antiquity. In recent years we have placed special emphasis on showcasing the diversity and contemporary relevance of ancient cultures—whether through thematic issues such as Propaganda in Antiquity, Pop Culture and Antiquity or The Green Antiquity, or through new sections such as Dualis, launched in collaboration with the Palladion Workshop, which highlights the significance of ancient art today. In 2025, with the launch of our new website, the journal enters a new era: Ókor becomes an immediate, unrestricted open access publication. This ensures that our contents are freely available, searchable and citable worldwide, accompanied by abstracts and keywords in both Hungarian and English. In this way, we aim to further strengthen the dialogue within the Hungarian and international communities of classical scholarship.
The current issues of Ókor are available for purchase in Budapest at
- Gondolat Publishing House (1088, Szentkirályi u. 16.),
- Atlantisz Könyvsziget (1052, Piarista Köz 1.),
- Írók Boltja (1061, Andrássy út 45.),
- ELTE BTK Jegyzetbolt (1088, Múzeum krt. 4/A, basement), with advance notice (info@jegyzetelte.hu, 411 6500 / 5281).
To subscribe to the Ókor journal, please write to the following email address: veradam@gmail.com.
Previous issues can be ordered from Gondolat Publishing (info@gondolatkiado.hu). The contents of the issues are continuously uploaded to our website's archive; please visit our old website to find any missing issues.
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