Ancient Near East History

There are an enormous number of print and online resources relating to the history of the Ancient Near East. This list of resources, while by no means exhaustive, provides a basic starting point for research in the ancient history of this region.

• Cambridge Ancient History, 12 vols., 1982- .
  Provides excellent in-depth information involving all aspects of the history of the ancient Near East.  Includes bibliographies at the end of each volume.
  D 57 .C25 (1st Floor)

Near East

• Oxford Encyclopedia of Archaeology in the Near East , 5 vols., 1997.
  This massive reference is the first complete archaeological history of the entire ancient world from Mesopotamia to East Africa. In 1,125 entries, by more than 550 leading scholars, this reference explores the archaeological data relating to the ancient Near East--the sites languages, material culture, archaeological methods, organizations, and institutions.
  Reference DS 56 .O9 1997
• Kappert, Jan. The Encyclopedia of Middle Eastern Mythology and Religion , 1993.
  This comprehensive encyclopedia explains mythologies and concepts of the various living and ancient religions of the Middle East, the cradle of religions, including Judaism, Zoroastrianism, and Egyptian, Sumerian, and Babylonian mythologies.  Includes maps and drawings throughout, plus a bibliography. 
  Reference BL 1060 .K52 1993x
• Leick, Gwendolyn. A Dictionary of Ancient Near Eastern Architecture, 1988.
  An illustrated alphabetic listing of architectural features and archeological sites concerning the architecture of the ancient Near East.
  Reference NA 212 .L45 1988
• Leick, Gwendolyn. Who's Who in the Ancient Near East, 1999.
  A survey of known individuals who inhabited the Near East from the 25th through the 2nd century BCE.  Includes a comprehensive glossary, useful chronological charts, maps, and bibliographical information.
  Reference DS 61.5 .L45 1999t
• Avi-Yonah, Michael, ed. Encyclopedia of Archaeological Excavations in the Holy Land, 4 vol., 1975-1978.
  Alphabetical.  Includes illustrations, maps, diagrams and bibliographies.
  Reference  DS 111. A2 E5
• Sasson, Jack M., ed. Civilizations of the Ancient Near East, 4 vols., 1995.
  Presents a thematic approach to the historic, cultural, religious, technological, artistic and linguistic aspects of the ancient Near East. Includes illustrations and bibliographies.
  Reference DS 57 .C55 1995
• Roaf, Michael. Cultural Atlas Mesopotamia and the Ancient Near East, 1990.
  Features extensive illustrations, maps, plans and reconstructions.
  Reference DS 69.5 .R63 1990

Egypt

• Redford, Donald B., ed. The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt, 3 vols., 2001.
  Features over 600 original articles written by leading scholars dealing with the social, political, religious, cultural and artistic legacy of this 5,000 year civilization. Extensively illustrated with photographs, line drawings, and maps.
  Reference DT 58 .O94 2001
• Bard, Kathryn A. Encyclopedia of the Archaeology of Ancient Egypt, 1998.
  Presents a series of 13 historical overviews, before launching into over 300 alphabetically arranged entries covering artifacts, biographies, buildings, geographical features, sites, society and archaeological techniques, illustrated with over 120 images. The contributors list includes many eminent Egyptologists
  Reference DT 58 .E53 1998

• The Combined Retrospective Index Set to Journals in History, 1838-1974. 8 vols.
  Provides a combination of subject and keyword indexing to articles from approximately 240 English-language journals in the field of history from their first issue through 1974. Each article appears under one or more of the 342 subject categories, which are then sorted by keyword and date.
  Index D 1 .C18
• Historical Abstracts, 1955-1970.
  Index D 299 .H5
• International Index to Periodicals, 1907-1955.
  Index AI 3 .R49
• International Index, 1955-1965.
  Index AI 3 .R49
• Social Sciences and Humanities Index, 1965-1974.
  Index AI 3 .R49
• Humanities Index, 1974-1996.
  Index AI 3 .H85x

• Humanities Abstracts - CMU users only
  A selective database covering 465 journals in the humanities from 1984 to the present. Accessible via FirstSearch.
• ATLA Religion - CMU users only
  A selective database covering 1550 sources dealing with all aspects of religion from 1949 to the present. Accessible via FirstSearch.
• Social Sciences Abstracts - CMU users only
  A selective database covering 550 journals in the social sciences from 1983 to the present. Useful for obtaining information some socioeconomic aspects of medieval life. Accessible via FirstSearch.
• JSTOR - CMU users only
  Full-text articles from more than 120 scholarly journals.  Covers such diverse subject areas as African American studies, anthropology, Asian studies, ecology, economics, education, finance, history, literature, mathematics, philosophy, political science, population studies, science, sociology, and statistics.  Includes Full-text, images, abstracts, citations.  Covers from the first volume of each included journal, excluding the latest 3-5 years.  A flexible search engine permits searching by article section (e.g., author, title, abstract, or full-text) and Boolean operators
• Digital Dissertations and Theses - CMU users only
  Database that represents the work of authors from over 1,000 graduate schools and universities, and includes more than two million entries.  Dates of the dissertations and theses range from 1861 to the present.  To access this database, click on “Virtual Reference Collection” from the University Libraries home page (www.lib.cmich.edu), then click on “Dissertations.”

These web sites serve as a good starting point for research into Ancient Near East history. Each one of the sites presents a wealth of historical information, plus numerous links to other very useful related web sites

• ABZU
  Guide to resources for the study of the Ancient Near East available on the Internet.
• Archaeological Resources
  Hosted by the Middle East Network Information Center, University of Texas at Austin.
• Oriental Institute
  Hosted by the University of Chicago
• Internet History Sourcebooks Project
  The Internet History Sourcebooks are highly useful collections of public domain and copy-permitted historical texts for educational use. The site and its documents, edited by Paul Halsall, are well organized and the breadth of materials is quite extensive.
• Annual Egyptological Bibliography
  Hosted by the Netherlands Institute for the Near East, University of Leiden.
• The Hittite Home Page
  Hosted by the American Schools of Oriental Research (ASOR), a non-profit organization dedicated to the archaeology of the Near East
• Prehistoric Archaeology of the Aegean
  Hosted by Dartmouth University.
• Women in the Ancient Near East
  A select bibliography of recent sources in the Oriental Institute Research Archive, University of Chicago.
• Centre for the Study of Ancient Documents
  The Centre provides a home for Oxford University's epigraphic archive, which includes one of the largest collections of squeezes (paper impressions) of Greek inscriptions in the world, together with the Haverfield archive of Roman inscriptions from Britain, and a substantial photographic collection.
• Theban Mapping Project
  A continually evolving comprehensive archaeological database of the ancient Egyptian city of Thebes.  Presents many useful site photos and diagrams.
• Egyptology Resources
  This page has been set up with the assistance of the Newton Institute in the University of Cambridge to provide a World Wide Web resource for Egyptological information.