Branka Vikić was born in Sarajevo in 1922. Her father was mining minister in the Cvetković-Macek government, and for political reasons emigrated to Bolivia, where he stayed until his death. Branka went to elementary school in Belgrade, and took a degree in art history and archaeology in Zagreb. She worked one year in the Local Museum in Tuzla, and from 1947 to 1982 worked in the Archaeological Museum in Zagreb.
She spent at least three decades, from 1953 on, studying the thermal and cult complex in Varaždinske Toplice, collecting a vast amount of moveable material, which enriched the holdings of the antique collections in the Toplice (Spa) and in the Archaeological Museum in Zagreb.
Another important focus of interest was the Podravina Limes, the main site of which was Ludbreg (Iova-Botivo), in which she discovered the ground plan of an ancient fortified city below today’s settlement. She excavated a Roman villa rustica by Jalžabet, throwing light on a farm of antiquity and its importance in the hinterland of the Limes. She explored the area of famed Andautonia as well.
She took a doctorate with a thesis on Roman Ceramic Production in the Sava and Drava Areas from the 1st to the 4th centuries, with special reference to clay lamp production. She published more than a hundred specialised and scholarly works, in which she presented a previously unknown ancient stratum in NW Croatia.
For her work, she won the City of Zagreb Prize, the Archaeology Association of Yugoslavia Commendation, the Commendation of the Museum of Varaždinske Toplice and the Don Frane Bulić Prize for lifetime achievement, in 2001.
She died in Zagreb at the beginning of 2005, in her 83rd year.

NB. Data taken from the questionnaire, material taken from the Personnel Archives of the MDC, and from an interview recorded on 27. ožujka 2002.