Ancient Near Eastern studies are increasingly taking place in the digital space. Here we offer an up-to-date collection of important links with resources for research and study.
The corpus of cuneiform texts is vast and its research is far from complete. However, many texts can now be viewed digitally in various projects.
The largest central database is CDLI (Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative). It provides a catalogue of cuneiform texts, often supplemented by photos and editions.
Furthermore, the following databases currently exist for various sub-corpora:
- Achemenet offers information about the Achaemenid Empire (550 - 330 BC), including editions of cuneiform texts.
- ARCHIBAB is the largest and still growing digital collection of Old Babylonian texts.
- Altassyrische Texte are available on the pages of the Hittite Portal Mainz, edited by Karl Hecker.
- BDTNS contains thousands of documents from the Ur III period.
- CCP (Cuneiform Commentaries Project) is dedicated to the scholarly text genre of commentary texts.
- The diyala project of the Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures (ISAC) of the University of Chicago offers a collection of excavation information, including photos, of the excavations carried out in the Diyala region.
- EbDA (Ebla Digital Archives) contains photos, editions and indices of some of the texts from Ebla (Tell Mardikh).
- eBL (Electronic Babylonian Literature) is dedicated to literary texts from the first millennium. The database also enables the identification of previously unattributed fragments.
- etcsl is the first port of call for Sumerian literary texts with around 400 lemmatized text editions and translations. Prof. Attinger (Bern) has also made many Translations of these texts available.
- The HethiterportaL MAINZ offers corpora, bibliographies and other resources for the study of Hittite and Hattic texts.
- Hittite Personal Names aids in researching Hittite onomastics.
- LaBaSi (Late Babylonian Signs) collects Late Babylonian sign forms to create a paleography of these texts.
- NaBuCCO (The Neo-Babylonian Cuneiform Corpus) catalogues around 20,000 texts from the Neo-Babylonian period.
- Oracc (Open Richly Annotated Cuneiform Corpus) brings together several dozen digital projects under its banner, including the Neo-Assyrian letters, royal inscriptions from various periods, and lexical lists.
- Prosobab (Prosopography of Babylonia) is a catalogue of Neo-Babylonian persons.
- SEAL (Sources of Early Akkadian Literature) contains over 900 literary texts from the third and second millennia BC.
- The Ugarit-Portal Göttingen offers text editions, information and bibliography on Ugaritic texts.
- Writing Sumerian is a new database of the University of Munich, which is gradually processing Sumerian-language texts from various periods.
Tools for literature research and bibliographies:
- KeiBi online The online version of the Keilschrift-Bibliographie (KeiBi), which appears in print as part of the journal Orientalia, lists all assyriological publications. The individual references can also be exported to literature databases (e.g. Citavi).
- On the pages of the Digitalen Nah- und Mittelost-Studien Marburg you will find, among other things, two important indices: Akkadische Glossare und Indizes (AGI) provides references to Sumerian and Akkadian words. Altorientalistische Bibliographien und Indizes (ABI) lists literature on key words. Both were compiled from the indexes of the Archivs for Orientforschung (AfO).
- The AfO register of text passages is currently being digitized at eBL.
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Propyläum - Specialized Information Service for the Study of Antiquity.
- BibMAS Bibliography of Mesopotamian Astral Science.
Many publications are available in digital form (PDF). A selection of sources:
- AWOL The Ancient World Online. The blog maintains two complete lists of open access publications (Monographs and Journals).
- ETANA Electronic Tools and Ancient Near Eastern Archives.
- AMAR publishes scans of older archaeological publications.
- ISAC Chicago offers free downloads of many of the institute's publications, including the Chicago Assyrian Dictionary.
- The Leipzig Supplement to the Akkadian Dictionaries can be found here: SAD.
- The Sumerian dictionary is ePSD (The electronic Pennsylvania Sumerian Dictionary), in the new version ePSD2.
- The complete RlA (Reallexikon der Assyriologie und Vorderasiatischen Archäologie) is available as a searchable database and can be read online.
- Further resources can be found in the CDLI WIKI, e.g. a Who's Who and a bibliographic list of abbreviations.
- Semiramis Unicode (Font for the production of transliterations and transcriptions).
- Keilschriftfonts (for writing cuneiform in text editing programs).
- BabyCal converts Babylonian dates into Julian dates (only works with dates between 626 BC and 75 AD).
- Cuneify generates cuneiform from alphabetical input.
- MesoCalc converts Mesopotamian numbers and units into metric.
- Geographical data for excavation sites was collected by Uppsala University and embedded in Google Earth. A similar tool is Ancient Locations.
- Olof Pedersén developed a digital MOdel of Babylon.
- BAPLAR (Babylonian and Assyrian Poetry and Literature: An Archive of Recordings) has compiled sound recordings of modern readings of ancient texts.
Museums are increasingly making parts of their collections accessible online, including some of the largest collections of ancient near eastern antiquities in the world. You may use many of the object photos available online for research and study - but make sure to observe the respective copyright regulations.
- Hilprecht-Sammlung, Jena and Here
- Vorderasiatisches Museum, Berlin and HERe
- LouvrE, Paris
- British MuseuM, London
- METropolitan Museum, New York
- The Morgan Library & Museum, New York
- Yale Peabody Collection (Yale Babylonian Collection)
- University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology (Penn Museum)
- Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures (Chicago)
- Musées royaux d’Art et d’Histoire (Brüssel)
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