With more than a million unique and historical items, archival collections in ICFA are divided into document, photograph, digital image, and moving image categories. Collections are generally comprised of administrative records, fieldwork papers, photographic prints, negatives, slides, oversize drawings, and moving images.
The history of ICFA goes back to 1938, when Robert and Mildred Bliss purchased a copy of the Index of Medieval Art (formerly the Index of Christian Art) from the Princeton University and funded a project called the Census of Early Christian and Byzantine Art. In 1941, Dumbarton Oaks gathered the first group of Byzantine fellows to systematically develop research materials and lists of monuments and sites that needed protection during the Second World War; the project was called the Research Archives. All of these projects including the fieldwork and photograph donations produced by organizations, scholars, and archaeologists were eventually brought together into one department that now serves the research needs of Dumbarton Oaks fellows and other researchers.
