Freely available web resources selected by the Ancient Near East, Semitics & Judaica librarian which will support your research into topics relating to Ancient Near Eastern civilizations, the Byzantine Empire, Semitic languages, Hebrew and Jewish Studies, and modern Israel / Palestine

  • General resources
    • Reviews in History (Institute of Historical Research)
      Searchable collection of book reviews on recent publications in all fields of history by academics or specialists in the field. Links to book reviews in other digital media.
    • Cuneiform Commentaries Project
      An ongoing project from Yale University to detail and photograph cuneiform tablets in the Assyrian and Mesopotamian commentary tradition held in major museums including the British Museum Comprises a searchable database, introductory essays and bibliographic material
    • CCMAwR: Critical Catalogue of Mesopotamian Anti-witchcraft Rituals
      Hosted by the University of Würzburg, this is an ongoing project to allow researchers to locate and study details of various cuneiform tablets concerned with anti-witchcraft rituals, including transcriptions where available
      Background information on how to use the resource and some related links are also supplied by AWOL (Ancient World Online)
    • Supplement to the Akkadian Dictionaries (eSAD)
      eSAD provides a complimentary update to two classic lexicons of the Akkadian language -  W. von Soden's Akkadisches Handwörterbuch (1958–1981, 3 volumes) and The Assyrian Dictionary of the University of Chicago (1956–2010, 20 volumes).  Due to the many new texts published after these series ceased publication, as well as new secondary literature and corrections, both dictionaries, especially in their earlier volumes, are outdated in part. eSAD is a continuing project and will also appear in print
    • Roundup of resources on Ancient Geography
      Curated on  AWOL, this brings together an eclectic range links to digital projects dealing with geography and the Ancient World
  • Open-access publications / digitised texts
    • Aleppo Codex Online
      Website devoted to the oldest extant copy of the Hebrew Bible (dating from around 930). Contains comment and analysis as well as a searchable, digitized copy of the text
    • Ancient World Digital Library
      Supported by the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World (ISAW) at New York University, the AWDL brings together open-access academic texts on all aspects of the the history and culture of the ancient world - including Mesopotamia, Assyria, Egypt, Israel, and cuneiform studies.
    • 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
    • Digitized Hebrew manuscripts at the Library of Congress
      A diverse selection of 50 digitized texts from the Hebrew manuscripts collection at the Library of Congress, dating from medieval times to the 20th century. Indexed by language, name, subject and place.
    • E-Corpus
      Collection of digitized documents and rare books from a French archival consortium. Includes “Virtual library on ancient and modern Egypt”
    • Early Hebrew Newspapers Project
      Digitised copies of major titles of the early Hebrew press in the diaspora and Eretz Israel in the 19th and early 20th century. The site is in Hebrew and requires the free image viewer viewONE to be downloaded in order for the texts to be read
    • Internet History Sourcebooks (Fordham University, New York)
      Directory to open-access historical texts on a range of subjects and regions: including Jewish History
    • Internet Sacred Text Archive
      Open access material on sacred texts, and translations of the texts themselves, including Ancient Near Eastern religions and Judaism
    • 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)
    • SOAS Research Online
      Open access e-print repository of academic publications (articles, book chapters, theses etc.) by SOAS staff and students.
    • Yiddish Prints
      An online collection of over 800 scanned Yiddish books held in the University in Frankfurt am Main (Universitaetsbibliothek Frankfurt am Main (in German / Yiddish)
    • Compact Memory Judaica Portal Online
      This collection within the digital library of the Goethe Universität (Frankfurt-am-Main) includes access to 110 Jewish German newspapers and journals published in Central Europe between 1806 and 1938. Content includes religious, political, social, cultural and academic aspects of life among Central  European Jewry. Most of the content is in German, but there is a selection of titles in Hebrew and Yiddish or with multilingual material.The database offers advanced search options, downloading and printing of articles.
    • The Standard Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh
      Background and recent research on the ancient Babylonian epic based around Professor Andrew George's critical edition of the poem and including his English translations of the composite cuneiform tablets that form the extant Gilgamesh canon
    • The Book of Ben-Sira
      Brings together on a single platform both ancient and medieval manuscripts of the Book of Ben-Sira held in  libraries and archives around the world. The original document, composed in Hebrew, around 180 BCE was a collection of  proverbs and teachings in the form of poetry. The digitised pages of original manuscripts can be viewed in parallel with a modern Hebrew or Greek transliteration
    • Propylaeum-DOK (Digital Repository:Ancient Near Eastern Studies)
      Hosted by the University of Heidelburg, Propylaeum - DOK aims to provide a platform for the  publishing, indexing and long-preservation of documents in the field of classical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies. It offers members of the academic community worldwide the opportunity to publish their texts (monographs, articles, lectures) under terms of Open Access in electronic format on the Internet. Articles and chapters from prominent journals and published books can be viewed and downloaded. Content is fully searchable. As well as ANE studies (over 400 entries), there is also a small collection in Byzantine Studies .
    • Ugaritica
      From the AMAR: Archive of Mesopotamian Archaeological Site Reports via AWOL - Volumes 1-7 of the Ugaritica monograph series detailing excavations and research on Ugarit, the Hurrians, Akkadian, cuneiform inscriptions and the Ras Shamra excavations, among other topics.
    • Manuscripts in St. Catherine's Monastery, Sinai (Library of Congress microfilm collection)
      The manuscript collection at the 6th century monastery of St, Catherine in Sinai ranges from bibles, to patristic works, to liturgies and prayers books, and on to legal documents such as deeds, court cases, Fatwahs (legal opinions). The greater proportion of the manuscripts were copied in Greek, and then in Syriac, Georgian, Coptic, Armenian, Arabic, Ottoman Turkish, and Ethiopic, as well as Old Church Slavonic.
      In 1949, an expedition under the auspices of the Library of Congress microfilmed 1,687 of the 3,300 manuscripts in the monastery library, which have now been scanned (in black & white) and made available on open-access
    • Alphabetical List of Open Access Monograph series in Ancient Studies
      Updated list of digitized or born-digital open-access monograph series on all aspects of the ancient world (just over 240 titles as of May 2019). Provided via the AWOL (Ancient World OnLine) blog
    • Open Access Ancient Language Textbooks, OERs and Primers
      Includes languages such as Avestan, Old Iranian, Old Persian, Kurdish and Biblical Hebrew as well as Ancient Near Eastern languages and Classical languages, and studies of faiths such as Zoroastrianism and Manicheism.  Provided via the AWOL (Ancient World OnLine) blog
    • Alphabetical List of Open Access Journals in Ancient Studies
      Currently around 1790 titles on all aspects of the Ancient World are listed on the AWOL (Ancient World OnLine) blog
  • Organizations
    • 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 Association of Jewish Studies
      Founded to “advance the teaching and research in Jewish culture and history” within Higher Education establishments in the United Kingdom
    • Chabad-Lubavitch Library (Chabad-Lubavitch Organisation of Hasidic Jews)
      An excellent New York Library for European Jewish studies between the 18th and 20th centuries. Also contains many items in Hebrew and Yiddish
    • 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.
    • Hebraica Libraries Group
      Established for librarians and specialists working in the field of Hebraica, but also open to other scholars and researchers interested in the Hebrew language and culture, particularly of the book.
    • 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
    • Wiener Library (Institute of Contemporary History)
      Founded in 1933, the Library holds extensive archives on the Holocaust and Nazi era including press-cuttings, photographs and eye-witness testimonies. It also collects on anti-Semitism and on other genocides such those in Rwanda and Armenia
    • United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
      The Museum’s website looks at the Holocaust in all its ramifications. Of interest to researchers into genocide studies, Jewish history, social history and 20th century European history.
  • Theses
    • DART-Europe
      Portal to over 300,000 open-access theses from over 430 universities in 24 European countries
    • History Online : Theses
      Part of the Institute of Historical Research’s History Online. Browse or search the database for details of U.K. PhD and Research Masters theses completed since 1970, and for research in progress.
    • SOAS Research Online: Theses
      Selection of SOAS PhD theses (mostly from 2011 onward). Very recent theses may not be available electronically
    • Theses Canada
      Portal to free full-text access to Canadian theses completed between 1998 and 2002. In English and French.