Letter No. 1 • Letter No. 2 • Letter No. 2.1 • Letter No. 3

Letter No. 3, 30 April 2013

The Albright library staff would like to draw your attention to some recent online resources:

The site maps of the Israel Antiquities Authority Archaeological Survey of Israel have been made available online. Each survey map covers an area of 10x10 km, on a scale of 1:20,000.
The website shows the map of Israel made up of the survey squares, and a list of the survey sites in alphabetical order, by name and number, as listed in the Register of Monuments and Archaeological Sites, Government Register no. 1091, 1964.
Magnifying the map will reveal yellow dots. Clicking on a dot, or on a name on the list below, will display a brief summary of the printed publication, detailed descriptions, periodic maps, and a bibliography.
The English site is still in Beta. Access to the Hebrew site.
Due to large amounts of data, the Chrome browser is recommended. The website is not accessible with Internet Explorer.

Also from the Israel Antiquities Authority, the Archaeological Archive of Israel, which is administered by the IAA, and amasses data on all of the activity of the archeological entities in the country, is being digitized. The first stage, containing 36,000 documents, photographs, maps and plans from the years 1919-1948, mainly from Akko and Jerusalem, and mostly in English, has been made available for viewing online.

The latest issue of Hesperia (82:1), Philhellenism, Philanthropy, or Political Convenience? American Archaeology in Greece deals with the practice of archaeology by superpowers in Classical lands, and the role played by philanthropy in projects of nationalism, as embodied by the American School of Classical Studies at Athens.
Founded in 1881, the American School has weathered war and economic depression. Its relationship with the Greek state and the Greek archaeological establishment has been ambivalent, and it has been a target for anti-American attacks. As a private institution it claims political neutrality but has exercised political power to its advantage. Yet, at the same time, its staff and members have demonstrated an extraordinary dedication to Greece and to its people in times of need.
The papers contributed to this special issue of Hesperia by a distinguished group of archaeologists, historians, and sociologists explore a complex web of relationships between political maneuvering, public service, and educational objectives. In sum they constitute a case study of one of America's most important overseas non-governmental institutions.
Full access from inside the Albright Institute.

The Arabic Manuscripts Digital Library of Jerusalem is being developed as part of the Manumed – Virtual Library of the Mediterranean Sea project.
At this time the digital archive contains mainly resources from the Budeiri Library. Future contributions will come from the Khalidi Library, the Al-Aqsa Library and Islamic Museum, the Al Ansari Library and The Waqf Restoration Center.
The Manumed project also includes the collection of Manuscripts of the Aga Khan Museum, and the Photographic Library of the French Institute of the Near East (IFPO).

The Centre de Recherche Français à Jérusalem (CRFJ) has posted materials from excavations conducted by Raymond Weill at Tell Gezer in 1913/14 and 1923/24.

The Archive of Mesopotamian Site Reports (AMAR) contains digitized copies of nearly 600 archaeological site reports, focusing on Mesopotamia, and including reports on the archaeology of Iran, the Gulf, Turkey, Syria, Armenia and Lebanon.
The books can all be downloaded without charge, for personal use only.
Browse the archive.

The British Institute for the Study of Iraq (BISI) has published ten volumes from its back-list online in open-access PDF. Among them are the five volumes of Cuneiform Texts from Nimrud.

The editors of the American Journal of Archaeology are offering twenty print-published articles for free download.

Finally, we’d like to remind you that –

All ASOR journals in JSTOR (listed below) are accessible up to the latest issues from inside the Albright Institute:

— The Annual of the American School of Oriental Research in Jerusalem, vol. 1 (1919)-2/3 (1921/22); continued by The Annual of the American Schools of Oriental Research, vol. 4 (1922/23)-current.

— Bulletin of the American School of Oriental Research in Jerusalem, no. 1 (1919)-2/3 (1920/21); continued by Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, no. 4 (1921)-current.

— Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research. Supplementary Studies, no. 1 (1945)-27 (1991).

— Journal of Cuneiform Studies, vol. 1 (1947)-current.

— The Biblical Archaeologist, vol. 1 (1938)-60 (1997); continued by Near Eastern Archaeology, vol. 61 (1998)-current.

The Israel Antiquities Authority’s publications, Atiqot and Hadashot Arkheologiyot (Hebrew) / Excavations and Surveys in Israel (English) are both published online with open-access. Free registration is required for Atiqot.

A constantly growing list of free-access digital full-text journals is available at The Ancient World Online (AWOL)’s Alphabetical List of Open Access Journals in Ancient Studies.

The open-access Ancient Near East Monographs digital monograph series, published jointly by the Society of Biblical Literature and Centro de Estudios de Historia del Antiguo Oriente in English or Spanish, focuses on the ancient Near East, including ancient Israel and its literature, from the early Neolithic to the early Hellenistic eras.

The British Museum Studies in Ancient Egypt and Sudan (BMSAES) is a peer-reviewed, academic journal dedicated to presenting research on all aspects of ancient Egypt and Sudan and the representation of these cultures in modern times.

The Online Comprehensive Aramaic Lexicon is a text base of the Aramaic texts in all dialects from the earliest (9th Century BCE) through the 13th Century CE, currently with a database of approximately 2.5 million lexically parsed words, over 30,000 individual lemmas (and 7,000 cross-references), over 60,000 glosses, and about 20,000 citations; and an associated set of electronic tools for analyzing and processing the data.

All Biblical Archaeology Society ebooks are available for download at http://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/free-ebooks/. Free registration required.

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Letter No. 2.1, 28 June 2012

A few more links you may appreciate:

— The International Journal of Osteoarchaeology, which focuses on human and animal bone research, is providing free access to some of its top-cited and most frequently downloaded articles in a virtual Issue on Stable Isotopes.
Recent issue Vol 22 Issue 1 January/February 2012 is currently also freely accessible.

— A new interactive map of the Roman Empire that includes roads, rivers and hundreds of sea routes allows users to calculate the travel time and costs for traversing the ancient empire. ORBIS: The Stanford Geospatial Network Model of the Roman World reconstructs the time cost and financial expense associated with a wide range of different types of travel in antiquity. The model is based on a simplified version of the giant network of cities, roads, rivers and sea lanes that framed movement across the Roman Empire. It broadly reflects conditions around 200 CE but also covers a few sites and roads created in late antiquity.
The model consists of 751 sites, most of them urban settlements but also including important promontories and mountain passes, and covers close to 10 million square kilometers (~4 million square miles) of terrestrial and maritime space. 268 sites serve as sea ports. The road network encompasses 84,631 kilometers (52,587 miles) of road or desert tracks, complemented by 28,272 kilometers (17,567 miles) of navigable rivers and canals.

— And finally, PDF files of all Loeb Classical Library books in the public domain.

Have a good summer!

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Letter No. 2, 13 June 2012 – more electronic resources

We would like to draw your attention to several more recent online resources:

Rome “La Sapienza” Expedition to Palestine & Jordan – Preliminary report on the results of the eighth season (2012) of archaeological excavations and restorations at the site of Tell es-Sultan / ancient Jericho.

A continually growing list of free access digital full-text journals is available at The Ancient World Online (AWOL)’s Alphabetical List of Open Access Journals in Ancient Studies.

The collection of Old Assyrian texts at Charles University in Prague has been electronically transliterated and is accessible through the Old Assyrian Text Project (OATP)’s database.
Lately the tablets have been digitized, and incorporated into the Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (CDLI – Los Angeles/Berlin), and are searchable through the CDLI search engine.
Other cuneiform collections which have been added recently to the CDLI website are those of the Musées d’Art et d’Histoire of Geneva; the Syrian Digital Library of Cuneiform, comprised of the collections of 5 Syrian museums; and eleven hitherto unpublished cuneiform documents currently in the possession of the Hershey (PA) Public Library.

Harvard University’s and the Boston Museum of Fine Arts’ world-class collections of photos, diaries, drawings, monographs, articles, and manuscripts on the Giza Necropolis have been digitized and made freely available online at the Giza Digital Library.
“The current inventory includes every Giza book and article by the members of the Harvard University–Boston Museum of Fine Arts Expedition (George Reisner, William Stevenson Smith, Dows Dunham, etc.), as well as every Egyptian and Nubian article ever published in the Bulletin of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (BMFA). It also includes all volumes of the more recent Giza Mastabas Series, edited by Peter Der Manuelian and William Kelly Simpson. Finally, past and current scholarship is also well represented.”

Iconography of Deities and Demons in the Ancient Near East – “… designed as a companion to the Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible (DDD), edited by Karel van der Toorn, Bob Becking and Pieter van der Horst [Albright Library classification BS680.G62D52 (ALB16243)]. Its focus will be on visual sources, which are essential for interpreting the religious symbol systems of antiquity.”

The Cairo Genizah Collection of the Bodleian libraries – “... the collection, featuring Bible, Early Rabbinic literature, liturgical fragments, legal documents and letters, both personal and commercial, is particularly remarkable for the size of many of the documents. The 4,000 fragments comprise about 25,000 pages, amounting to over six pages per fragment, an average unparalleled elsewhere. The online catalogue is based upon the printed catalogue of the Hebrew manuscripts in the Bodleian Library (2nd volume) by Adolf Neubauer and Arthur Ernest Cowley (1906) and the typewritten catalogue of additional Genizah fragments by Arthur Ernest Cowley (ca 1929).”

The audio/video of the Thomas Römer–“The Hebrew Bible and its Contexts” symposium on “Taboo and Transgressions” held 11-12 April 2012 at the Collège de France, Paris, is available online, at:
http://www.college-de-france.fr/site/thomas-romer/audio_video.jsp (français).
http://www.college-de-france.fr/site/en-thomas-romer/audio_video.jsp (English).

New Archaeological Research Network for Integrating Approaches to Ancient Mediterranean Studies (NARNIA) – “... an interdisciplinary project, the main objective of which is to provide young researchers with the means to conduct research on ancient Eastern Mediterranean material culture and to develop their analytical skills through a series of research and training activities. … This well-structured research network aims to improve the career prospects of employment for young researchers, developing their lab-based skills in the study of ancient materials, while contributing to the history and archaeology of the Eastern Mediterranean basin, a region of great historical, cultural and geopolitical significance. In particular, through a comprehensive mobility scheme, young researchers will have the opportunity to continue their research careers at high profile universities and well-established private enterprises while working in research projects focused on the study of ancient material culture.”

Finally, there are still 2 evenings remaining to visit the 2012 Jerusalem Festival of Light, in which local and international artists use light in order to create statues, installations, performances and artwork, in and around the Old City.
See the map and the program.
June 6-14, 2012, from 20:00-24:00. Open to the public free of charge.

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Letter No. 1, 10 November 2011 – update on electronic resources

The library staff have been working on improving the range of resources on offer in the library, particularly in digital form.
If there are particular online utilities you would be interested to have available during your stay at the Albright please let us know.

We would like to draw your attention to the following online resources:

Wiley-Blackwell has made available a Special Virtual Issue, Top Discoveries in Archaeology, featuring content from leading Archaeology journals, free until the end of 2011.

The International Journal of Nautical Archaeology has made available a Special Virtual Issue, Asking Questions, Raising Standards, Developing Skills: Four Decades of IJNA, free until the end of 2011.

The Dead Sea Scrolls are now accessible online as high quality images, at: http://dss.collections.imj.org.il/

The Archives of the American Schools of Oriental Research (ASOR), which contain, among other things, materials pertaining to excavations lead or participated in by ASOR in the last 100 years, are being digitized. They can be found at:
http://www.asor.org/archives/collections.html

The Digital Library for International Research (DLIR) has brought together in digital form the library and research collections (including maps, photographs, and rare journals) of the American academic centers which make up the Council of American Overseas Research Centers (CAORC), in an e-library at: http://www.dlir.org/eresources.html

The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago has been scanning its back catalog and offers digital versions of most of its old and new publications, at: http://oi.uchicago.edu/research/pubs/catalog/

JSTOR has made some of its Early Journal Content freely available, specifically articles pre-1923 from the US and pre-1870 from international journals. See http://about.jstor.org/support-training/help/free-early-journal-content-jstor for more information.
You can also access this content from the Albright library catalog records for the following journals:
American anthropologist.
American journal of archaeology.
American journal of Semitic languages and literatures.
American journal of theology.
Annual of the American Schools of Oriental Research.
Annual report of the Trustees of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Biblical world.
Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research.
Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Harvard theological review.
Hebraica.
Jewish quarterly review.
Journal of religion.
Journal of the American Oriental Society.
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society.
Old & New Testament student.

The National Library of Israel has digitized many of its collections; several may be found at the following links:
Holy Land Maps
Ancient Maps of Jerusalem
Ancient Maps of Historic Cities
Digitized Manuscripts
Digitized Book Repository

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Updated June 2012