This guide is intended for students and researchers studying Ancient Near Eastern Studies at the University of Oxford, although students and researchers from any field may find it useful.
Use this guide to find out about books, journals and electronic resources for Ancient Near Eastern Studies, including ebooks, ejournals and databases.
The OXF_Study skills resources reading list gives a sample of available books, documents and videos on study skills that you may find helpful. Many titles are available as ebooks or can be borrowed from Oxford libraries.
You may find other relevant titles available on SOLO, and you can suggest books you would like the Bodleian Libraries to purchase via the link below. You can also contact your college library to suggest books you would like them to purchase.
Oxford has the best collection for printed books on Ancient Near Eastern Studies in the British Isles and also offers access to a growing collection of ebooks on this subject. The physical books are held by the Art, Archaeology and Ancient World Library as well as the Bodleian Library, and anyone studying or researching Ancient Near Eastern Studies in Oxford should expect to make use of both libraries.
Apart from these two major research libraries, Wolfson College Library holds the Jeremy Black Collection in Ancient Near Eastern Studies. It welcomes qualified students and researchers to consult the collections during library staff hours.
More information on finding books on Ancient Near Eastern Studies can be found on the Books page.
Search SOLO, the University's resource discovery tool, for print and ebooks at Oxford. You can search by author, title or subject and limit to a specific library or online resources.
If you need help with SOLO, take a look at this guide for tips on searching, managing results and using your SOLO account.
This guide gives information about how to search for ebooks, use them etc.
On a monthly basis the Art, Archaeology and Ancient World Library publishes it's new accessions, inc monographs, journals and off-site material, in the form of New Acquisitions Lists on the the Library's 101 Blog. The new items are arranged by floor / collections. Most material for Ancient Near Eastern Studies is kept on F1 (= Floor 1) and in HA (= Haverfield Room), and the locations appear in the lists to the left of each entry. Related material can be found on all floors of the Art, Archaeology and Ancient World Library.
The full range of Ancient Near Eastern Studies journals, in print and, where available, in electronic format (eformat), can be searched via SOLO or the eJournals A-Z. Below are the top journals for Ancient Near Eastern Studies, and you find more information about periodicals on the Journals page of this guide.
A full, browsable list of ejournals available at Oxford.
Search SOLO, the University's resource discovery tool, for print and ejournals at Oxford. You can filter by topic, publisher and more.
Advances in Ancient Biblical and Near Eastern Research (eformat only)
Altorientalische Forschungen (print only)
Archiv für Orientforschung in print format and in eformat
Bibliotheca Orientalis in print format and in eformat
Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research in print format and in eformat
Istanbuler Mitteilungen (print only)
Journal of the American Oriental Society in print and in eformat
Journal of Near Eastern Studies in print format and in eformat
Levant in print format and in eformat
Mesopotamia (print only)
Mitteilungen der Deutschen Orient-Gesellschaft zu Berlin in print format and in eformat
Orientalia in print format and in eformat
Revue d'assyriologie et d'archéologie orientale in print format and in eformat
State Archives of Assyria: Bulletin (print only)
Studia Orientalia Electronica (eformat only)
Sumer in print format and in eformat
Ugarit-Forschungen (print only)
Zeitschrift für Assyriologie und vorderasiatische Archäologie in print format and in eformat
Oxford subscribes to many databases. For Ancient Near Eastern Studies you can additionally access a number of subject-related databases freely online. Below, you find a few key databases, and many more are listed in the databases and online resources pages of this guide. A larger selection of subject-related databases can be found on the Bodleian Libraries' Databases A-Z.
The aim of this project is to expand the Nineveh-focused State Archives of Assyria online (SAAo) corpus by creating a complete, open-access corpus of Neo-Assyrian archival texts. Unlike SAAo, the linguistical-annotated texts in the ATAE corpus are arranged by their provenance and the archive in which they were unearthed.
Online Assyrian Dictionary of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago.
Initiated in 1975 the Chicago Hittite Dictionary Project is a project of the University of Chicago's Oriental Institute, aiming to provide a complete dictionary of the Hittite language.
Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative
The cdli provides a vast database of objects with cuneiform inscriptions as well as a myriad of links, tools and information pivotal for Ancient Near Eastern Studies.
The BDTNA is a searchable electronic corpus of Neo-Sumerian administrative cuneiform tablets dated to the 21st century B.C.
The ETCSL comprises a selection of nearly 400 literary compositions recorded on sources which come from ancient Mesopotamia and date to the late third and early second millennia BCE.
The KeiBi is a searchable database for publications on cuneiform texts.
ORACC hosts many subprojects with catalogues of cuneiform corpora, inc transliterations and translations of ancient texts.
The Pennsylvania Sumerian Dictionary Project is preparing an exhaustive dictionary of the Sumerian language which aims to be useful to non-specialists as well as Sumerologists. In addition, we are developing tools and datasets for working with the Sumerian language and its text-corpora.
State Archives of Assyria online is an open-access web resource that aims to make the rich Neo-Assyrian materials found in the royal archives of Nineveh, and elsewhere, more widely accessible.
Whilst collections and resources are focused on the Bodleian Libraries' collections, the following online library catalogues can be useful for locating copies in collections in the UK and Ireland as well as in collections worldwide:
Jisc Library Hub Discover exposes rare and unique research material by bringing together the catalogues of major UK and Irish libraries. In a single search you can discover the holdings of the UK's National Libraries (inc the British Library), many university libraries and specialist research libraries.
WorldCat is the world's largest network of library content and services.
Anthea Crane
Email: anthea.crane@bodleian.ox.ac.uk
Telephone: +44 (0)1865 288065
This termly Newsletter informs you about upcoming lectures, news, people, funding deadlines and student activities, all related to Assyriology at The University of Oxford.
The Ashmolean’s Ancient Near Eastern collections are among the finest in the world, ranging in date from the earliest farming communities of the tenth millennium BC to the spread of Islam in the seventh century AD, and including the second largest collection of cuneiform tablets in the UK. An overview of the recently refurbished gallery is given by its curator Paul Collins.
The Griffith Institute is the heart of Egyptology and Ancient Near Eastern Studies, located at the University of Oxford for over eighty years.
The University of Oxford's dedicated centre for research into the history, languages and cultures of Azerbaijan, the Caucasus and Central Asia from antiquity to modern times.
Founded in 1884 the Pitt Rivers Museum houses the archaeological and anthropological collections of the University of Oxford. The Photographs of Arabia by Wilfred Thesiger are preserved in the Pitt Rivers Museum.