Open-access textbooks & language primers

The AWOL (Ancient World Online) blog has brought together a selection of open-access text-books and primers of languages of the Ancient World, including a number relevant to the Near East  (Biblical Hebrew, Hittite, Manichaean Sogdian, Sumerian etc.)

CLICK HERE TO ACCESS THE AWOL LIST 

 ** For Akkadian, note Alan Lenzi's direction to his Reading Akkadian Hymns and Prayers: An Introduction, 

http://www.sbl-site.org/assets/pdfs/9781589835962.pdf


"It doesn't teach Akkadian, but it does help with rapid reading of 29 selected prayers and hymns".

A lost language rediscovered?

This report from the Independent newspaper examines recent discoveries at a dig at the Assyrian imperial governor's palace at Tushan (south-east Turkey) which seem to be evidence of a previously unknown language, probably spoken by a people from the Zagros Mountains of Iran

CLICK HERE TO ACCESS THE NEWSPAPER ARTICLE


A detailed analysis of the discovery has been published in the Journal of Near Eastern Studies Vol.71 (1) 2012 ("Evidence for a peripheral language in a neo-Assyrian tablet from the governor's palace in Tushan" John MacGinnis)
This is available from JSTOR Current collections. Click here to access the journal article 

The Melammu Project : new online resource

This is an Assyrian and Babylonian heritage project "investigating the continuity, transformation and diffusion of Mesopotamian culture throughout the ancient world from the 2nd millennium BC until Islamic times". The project website hosts a digital library of open-access works (mainly articles and chapters) from major academic publishers, plus online dictionaries, a bibliography and a key-word searchable database drawing attention to parallel texts. It also links out to other text collections. Use the side bar to navigate between collections.

CLICK HERE TO ACCESS THE MELAMMU PROJECT'S DIGITAL LIBRARY

Melammu will shortly be accessible through the Library's online subject guide to the Ancient Near East

Emar Studies: new online resource

Materials for Emar Studies is a joint project from the Universität Heidelberg, the Maison René-Ginouvès (Nanterre), the Universität Tübingen and CSIC (Madrid)
It is an active online resource, gathering material on the archaeology, history and culture of ancient Emar (in modern-day Syria). The resource contains an author / subject bibliography, a glossary and online articles and texts in a variety of European languages.
Scholars are invited to contribute their own work


CLICK HERE TO ACCESS MATERIALS FOR EMAR STUDIES

Book review: The Ituraeans and the Roman Near East: reassessing the sources

The Ituraeans inhabited areas of present-day Syria / Palestine in the late 1st century BCE. Elaine Myer's book challenges the view of the Ituraeans as tribes of bandits and reinterprets the archaeological evidence to give a more balanced view.

Mark Chaney of the Southern Methodist University (Dallas, Texas) reviews the book in Review of Biblical Literature. 
CLICK HERE TO READ THE REVIEW

SOAS Library has The Ituraeans and the Roman Near East at
QH939.43 / 734843


CLICK HERE TO GO TO THE LIBRARY CATALOGUE TO CHECK AVAILABILITY 

New book in the SOAS ANE collection

Most probably: epistemic modality in Old Babylonian by Nathan Wasserman has recently been received by SOAS Library.

Classmark: L.QEG415 / 735626


CLICK HERE TO CHECK AVAILABILITY ON THE LIBRARY CATALOGUE

Series in AMAR

Charles Jones of the Oriental Institute (University of Chicago) has started a project to pull together the excavation reports listed in AMAR into series / subject categories.

His index is posted on the AWOL blog (Ancient World OnLine) and currently has content from the Archaeologische Berichte aus dem Yemen to Ugaritica, including Bogazkoy and the Mission archeologique de Mari