A Research Guide to the Ancient World

Reviews / Votes

The study of the ancient Mediterranean, Egypt, and the Near East continues to be a mainstay of Western education, generating a large volume of scholarship. This guide by Weeks and Medeiros focuses on the monographs, books, journals, and electronic resources written primarily in Western European languages, Greek, or Hebrew that treat the history and prehistory of the region. As the authors state, the guide cannot be considered comprehensive because of the enormous literature of the field. To warrant inclusion, works were judged by their availability, scholarly significance, and subject matter. In separate chapters, the authors discuss specialized library and museum collections, subject and regional bibliographies, dictionaries, encyclopedias, handbooks, abstracts and indexes, journals, biographical information, directories of organizations and associations, atlases, photographic and visual collections, and theses and dissertations. Several appendixes provide additional helpful information, such as relevant graduate programs, sources on paleography and writing systems, and numismatics. The most useful appendix, however, is the list of archaeological site reports arranged by country and then by site. Because of the scope of the work, some omissions are inevitable, yet for those libraries that support programs in classics, archaeology, ancient history, biblical studies, and related fields, this guide must be considered a required purchase. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates, graduate students, researchers/faculty. * Choice Reviews * First and foremost, a bibliographic record of resources relating to the ancient world, this book is a collected volume that brings together the disciplines of humanities and the social sciences. Its coverage is holistic and generally excellent. . . .The world is often at our fingertips in an age of technological advances but more often than not knowing where to start and how to get there are questions that concern us. This volume takes away the uncertainty and ensures that when research is undertaken the researcher knows that they are going directly to some relevant information. Arranged in a traditional style by the types of material that would be found in a library, yet with links to finding the information online, this is an extensive volume that will undoubtedly assist researchers in their work. * Reference Reviews * With its inclusion of a wide range of resources for those interested in this period, this volume could be useful in libraries in high schools [and] to those in large academic institutions. * American Reference Books Annual * Weeks and de Medeiros have done a great service for students of the ancient world, making the vast scholarly literature on the subject much more manageable. The clear organizing principles behind this research guide mean that those who are new to the study of antiquity or those experts who want to broaden their understanding beyond their own region of specialization can very quickly immerse themselves in the scholarly literature. With the increasing specialization of ancient studies, a research guide like this adds a much needed level of accessibility to a field that has become very complex and very regionally focused. It is particularly useful in that it is not just a bibliography confined to major works but offers guidance about libraries, institutes, photographic collections, and academic organizations. -- Kevin M. McGeough, University of Lethbridge, Canada