[skip to content]
Ancient Near East
Web resources
- ARCHIBAB Database hosted by the Archives Babyloniennes (Paris). Gives access to over 2000 documents (most with transcripts) from Ur, Mari, Nippur etc. (in French). You need to “accept terms and conditions”
- A-Z of archaeological sites in Israel Index of excavations in Israel ranging from Akko to Zippori, and from prehistory to the Crusader era. Click on the links to view descriptions, photographs of the sites and finds
- Bibliography of Semitic Linguistics (1940-2010) Digitized version of a bibliography devised by Dr Gregorio del Olmo Lete (founder of the journal Aula Orientalis). It includes ancient Near Eastern languages, Modern Hebrew, Ethiopic and Arabic. View each section online, or as a PDF
- Encyclopedia of the Hellenic World Covers Asia Minor, the Black Sea area and Constantinople / Byzantium from ancient times and includes articles, bibliographies, a directory of related web-links and an historical interactive atlas with audio-visual material.
- Hethitologie Portal Mainz Expanding gateway to academic websites of information on all aspects of Hittite and ancient Anatolian studies, including links to many other relevant websites (in German)
- Materials for Emar Studies Project from four European universities drawing together material including author-subject bibliography, glossary and online articles on the history, archaeology and culture of ancient Emar (Syria)
- Okeanos Interdisciplinary resource for the study of the ancient, biblical, classical and late antique Near East. Maintained by Scott Noegel of the University of Washington.
- ORACC (Open Richly Annotated Cuneiform Corpus) Created by the University of Pennsylvania, the University of California at Berkeley and Cambridge University to draw together websites, project data and online texts relating to cuneiform studies. Includes:
Open-access texts
- AWOL (Ancient World Online) Directory to open-access historical texts on the Ancient World: includes late antiquity, Byzantium, early Church history, Syriac and Coptic studies, history of medicine.
- A-Z Open Access journals on Ancient Studies
- Cuneiform Digital Library Database hosted by UCLA, bringing together over 250,000 digitized texts of cuneiform writings from various museums and institutions in Europe and America, dating from 3500 BC to the end of the pre-Christian era
- ETANA (Electronic Tools and Ancient Near East Archives) Database of digitized out-of-copyright texts plus some open-access resources on ancient Near Eastern studies. Currently contains over 350 titles. Option to create personal user account
- Internet Sacred Text Archive: Ancient Near East Open access material on sacred texts, and translations of the texts themselves, including versions of Gilgamesh and The Descent of the Goddess Ishtar into the Lower World
- Melammu Project: digital library (University of Helsinki) Resource on the diffusion of Mesopotamian culture from ancient times to the rise of the Islamic empire comprising open-access works (mainly articles and chapters) plus online dictionaries, a bibliography and a key-word searchable database
- Oriental Institute (Chicago) : open-access publications Link to open-access back catalogue titles from OIC. Includes the Assyrian and Hittite dictionaries and a range of monographs, bulletins and archaeological reports (via AWOL)
Organisations and other Libraries
- British Association for Near Eastern Archaeology (BANEA) Aims to bring together professionals and non-professionals with an interest in the archaeology, languages and history of the ancient Near East
- British Museum Showcases the world’s cultural and artistic heritage from pre-history to artefacts of the 21st century. View detailed bibliographic records and photographs of thousands of items from the collection
- London Centre for the Ancient Near East Based at SOAS, with the aim to establish London as a centre for the study of ancient near eastern civilizations and to establish a network of academic interest in the region
