Library Guides: Ancient Near East: Images

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Catalogs

University of Chicago Library Catalog

Find items in all campus libraries, including books, periodicals, sound recordings, videos, DVDs and more.
Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures (OI) Research Archives Catalog

Indexes articles, book reviews, monographs, and single volumes from sets. The catalog of the Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures Research Archives at the University of Chicago contains entries for ancient Near East materials cataloged since 1987 with complete analytics (essays, articles and book reviews) for materials cataloged since 1990. The catalog also includes earlier materials, but not comprehensively.
WorldCat (OCLC)

WorldCat is a database that allows researchers to search the combined catalogs of hundreds of libraries around the world. It contains more than 52 million records for books, journals, audiovisual materials and more. This source can help researchers find items, verify citations, and identify which libraries hold a particular title.
ProQuest Dissertations & Theses

Includes citations for materials from the first U.S. dissertation (1861) to those accepted as recently as last semester. Starting in 1997 full-text is often available. If full-text is not available information about ordering the document is provided.

Indexes

KeiBi: The Keilschriftbibliographie Online

The International Keilschriftbibliographie (KeiBi) was first published by the Pontifical Biblical Institute, Rome in the journal Orientalia in 1940 (Orientalia N.S. 9). It became an essential tool for the study, research, and teaching of Ancient Near Eastern Studies. The search for entries, though, proves quite cumbersome a weakness that all bibliographies issued over a substantial period of time share. To enable better access we hereby present the KeiBi online Database, where all issues already published can be searched simultaneously. Publisher's website
Online Egyptological Bibliography

The Online Egyptological Bibliography (OEB) holds the largest available collection of references in Egyptological literature. It includes the volumes of the Annual Egyptological Bibliography (AEB) for 1947 to 2001 with abstracts, combined with Bibliographie Altgypten (BA) for 1822 to 1946, the Aigyptos database with keywords, and many thousands of more recently added records. It provides coverage of Egyptological literature from 1822 to the present and is updated nearly every day.
Articles Plus

Articles Plus allows simultaneous searching of a broad range of articles, books, book reviews, and other collections, including:
Hundreds of the Librarys article databases
Over 40,000 journals and periodicals
The University of Chicago Library catalog
Digitized collections of documents and images from many organizations
Google Scholar
For citation linking
Web of Science
For citation linking. Uncheck the Science Index.

Authoritative, multidisciplinary content covers over 10,000 of the highest impact journals worldwide, including Open Access journals and over 110,000 conference proceedings. You'll find current and retrospective coverage in the sciences, social sciences, arts, and humanities, with coverage available to 1900. Includes the Science Citation Expanded, Social Sciences Citation Index, and Arts & Humanities Citation Index. Web of Science is especially useful for its citation linking.

Journals

Serial Guide: Classics, Ancient Near East, Medieval Latin & Byzantine Studies
UChicago E-Journals

The Electronic Journals Database provides access to the majority of the electronic journal titles available through the University of Chicago Library. Browse by journal title or conduct a title keyword or ISSN search.
JSTOR

A database of back issues of core journals in the humanities, social sciences, and sciences. All issues of each journal are included in full-text except for the most recent 2-to-5 years.

Image Collections

Ancient World Image Bank
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The Ancient World Image Bank is a collaborative effort to distribute and encourage the sharing of free digital imagery for the study of the ancient world. Beginning with the slide and digital photography collections of ISAW faculty, staff and affiliates, AWIB will expand to publish imagery donated by others as well.

Arachne (iDAI.images)
Access is free, but you must create an account.

Arachne is the central object-database of the German Archaeological Institute (DAI). In 2004 the DAI and the Research Archive for Ancient Sculpture at the University of Cologne (FA) joined the effort to support Arachne as a tool for free internet-based research.
From their Web site.
ARTstor
Popup window blocking must be disabled to use all of ARTstor's features.

Image database covering architecture, painting, sculpture, photography, decorative arts, and design as well as many other forms of visual culture. Select "Search and Browse for Images" to begin using the database.

CAMEL Laboratory, the Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures, UChicago
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Contact the CAMEL staff for access to imagery.

Guide to the Keystone-Mast Collection, 1870-1963
To search for images, select "online items" under "Search this collection."

Contains thousands of stereoscopic images of the Middle East mostly dating from the turn of the last century.

Keystone-Mast Collection, 1870-1963

The Keystone-Mast Collection Guide 2003 provides online access to approximately twenty percent (approximately 28,872) of the total stereographic collection. To date, it represents content from the following geopolitical subject areas: entries from North America, from Central America, from West Indies (Caribbean Islands), from South America, from Oceania, from Asia, from Africa, and from the Middle East. When finished, the collection guide will consist of well over 100,000 online stereoviews complete with metadata.

Manar al-Athar
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The Manar al-Athar website, based at the University of Oxford, aims to provide high resolution, searchable images for teaching, research, and publication. These images of archaeological sites, with buildings and art, will cover the areas of the former Roman empire which later came under Islamic rule, such as Syro-Palestine/the Levant, Arabia, Egypt, North Africa and Spain. The chronological range is from Alexander the Great (i.e., from about 300 BC) through, the Islamic period to the present. It is the first website of its kind providing such material labelled jointly in both Arabic and English. We will also be publishing related material, both online and on paper, in English and Arabic.

Middle East Photo Archive of the University of Chicago Library

The Middle East Photograph Archive consists of about 400 photographs, most dating to the second half of the nineteenth century and produced by professional photographers. The images depict the monuments of the Middle East's medieval and ancient past as well as scenes of daily life in urban and rural locations.

Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures Museum's Highlights from the Collections
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Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures Museum at the University of Chicago is a showcase of the history, art and archaeology of the ancient Near East. This collection of images highlights objects chosen to illuminate some of the more interesting and important aspects of ancient Near Eastern civilizations.

Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures, UChicago. Photographic Archives

The Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures of the University of Chicago is among the leaders in the recovery of the history, languages, and cultures of the ancient Near East. In the halcyon days of the 1930s, when universities and museums conducted expeditions on a scale now unheard of, Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures teams worked in nearly every country of the Near East. An integral part of each excavation was the expedition photographer, who was entrusted with capturing not only the routine of each days work but also the moments of discovery and exploration. These images recount some of these memorable moments, as the Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures sifted the sands of time. (From their Web site)

Travelers in the Middle East Archive (TIMEA)
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he Travelers in the Middle East Archive (TIMEA) is a digital archive that focuses on Western interactions with the Middle East, particularly travels to Egypt during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. TIMEA offers electronic texts such as travel guides, museum catalogs, and travel narratives, photographic and hand-drawn images of Egypt, and historical maps of Egypt and Cyprus.
From their website

Visual Resources Center Collections (UChicago)

Image database maintained by the Visual Resources Center, Department of Art History. These resources are available to all members of the University community.

Subject Specialist

Catherine Mardikes

she/her

Send Email

Contact:

Bibliographer for Classics, the Ancient Near East, Linguistics, and General Humanities
Joseph Regenstein Library,
Room 468
Office: 773-702-2783
Cell: 773-820-2842

Subjects: Ancient Near East, Classics, General Humanities, Humanities, Linguistics, Medieval and Byzantine Studies

Finding Images

See also, the Library's guide to finding Images.