Information Services

Archaeology

Some useful resources for Archaeology

L'Annee philologique

Access Information: Access on and off-campus.
Description: L’Année philologique is a specialised bibliographic database of scholarly works relating to all aspects of Ancient Greek and Roman civilizations. It covers a wide array of subjects, including Greek and Latin literature and linguistics—which includes early Christian texts and patristics—Greek and Roman history, art, archaeology, philosophy, religion, mythology, music, science, and scholarly subspecialties such as numismatics, papyrology, and epigraphy. Abstracts of journal articles are provided in English, German, Spanish, French, or Italian. Book entries may include tables of contents and book review information. Published by the Société Internationale de Bibliographie Classique this online database includes all volumes of the annual index, beginning with Volume I published in 1928.

 

Access information: Available on and off campus.
Description: The Taylor & Francis Online Journal Archive includes 14 journals and over 380 volumes of peer-reviewed research. Content covers the period from 1890 to 1996. Highlights include, Anthropological Forum, Ethnos and World Archaeology.

 

Anthropology Plus

Access information: Access on and off campus.
Description: Brings together into one resource the highly respected Anthropological Literature from Harvard University and Anthropological Index, Royal Anthropological Institute from the UK. It provides extensive worldwide indexing of journal articles, reports, commentaries, edited works, and obituaries. It offers excellent coverage of all core periodicals in the field in addition to local and lesser-known journals. Anthropology Plus contains bibliographic records only.
Coverage: Late 19th century to the present.

 

Access Information: Access on and off campus
Description: E-books in archaeology. Around 10-15 new books are added each month. Subscribed e-books will be listed on DiscoverEd. Open access e-books are also available.
Note: A title list can be found at https://www.archaeopress.com/Archaeopress/Digital-Subscriptions/Metadata

 

 

Art and Architecture Source

Access information:

Access on or off campus.

Description: Art & Architecture Source covers a broad range of related subjects, from fine, decorative and commercial art, to various areas of architecture and architectural design. Providing over 600 full-text journals, more than 220 full-text books, and a collection of over 63,0000 images, it is designed for use by a diverse audience, including art scholars, artists, designers, students and general researchers.

 

Art Full Text and Art Abstracts

Access information: Available on and off-campus from EBSCOhost.
Description: Indexes 223 leading domestic and international periodicals pertaining to the art world. Covers advertising art, antiques, archaeology, architecture, art, design, films, museology and photography.
Coverage: 1984 to present.
Note: This resource will be replaced by Art & Architecture Source from 26th May 2017.

 

ARTBibliographies Modern

Access information: Access on and off campus.
Description: The ARTbibliographies Modern database provides references (with abstracts) to journal articles, museum bulletins, exhibition catalogues, books, essays, and dissertations covering modern and contemporary art and design. Subjects covered include photography, textiles, furniture and interior design, graphic design, computer and electronic art, artists' books, video art, jewellery, theatre arts, pottery, illustration, costume, needlecraft, calligraphy, and glass art.
Coverage: 1974 - present.

 

Access information: Access on and off-campus. Not working? Try clearing your cookies. Alternatively, use the Alternative login (with the VPN service if off campus) and choose Web of Science Core Collection from "All Databases" drop down menu.
Description: Part of Web of Science Core Collection. A multidisciplinary index containing details of every substantive item in 1,200 arts and humanities journals, as well as references to books included in book reviews, and live performances, films, records, and television and radio broadcasts. Contains over 2 million references.
Coverage: 1906 - present.

 

Arts and Humanities Full Text, Proquest

Access Information: Access on and off campus
Description: Full-text of the contents of hundreds of titles in Art, Archaeology, Architecture, Design, Philosophy, Music, Literature, Theatre and Cultural Studies.

 

BAS Library

Access information:

Access on and off campus.

Description:

BAS Library is the Biblical Archaeology Society’s online archive and includes access to the journals Biblical Archaeology Review (1975 to present), Bible Review (1985-2005) and Archaeology Odyssey (1998-2006). It also includes the 5th volume of the New Encyclopedia of Archaeological Excavations published by BAS and the Israel Exploration Society, as well as books published in collaboration with the Smithsonian. A selection of videos by noted scholars is also included. While BAS Library is fully searchable they have put together some Collections that allow you to browse a selection of relevant articles on popular topics in one place.

 

Bibliography of British and Irish History

Access information: Access on and off campus. Select Bibliography of British and Irish History on the Brepolis Login Portal page.
Description: The Bibliography of British and Irish History provides bibliographic data on historical writing dealing with the British Isles, and with the British Empire and Commonwealth, during all periods for which written documentation is available - from 55BC to the present. It is the successor to the Royal Historical Society Bibliography of British and Irish History, available online from 2002 to 2009.
Coverage: 55BC-present.  The complete database now contains over 560,000 records, and is updated three times a year, usually in February, June and October.

 

Brill's New Pauly

Access information: Access on and off-campus. Choose New Pauly Online to access this database
Description: Recognized standard reference work for students and scholars of the ancient world. Brill's New Pauly is the English edition of the authoritative Der Neue Pauly, published by Verlag J.B. Metzler since 1996, and both versions of the text are available online, fully searchable and cross referenced.
Coverage:

Fifteen volumes (Antiquity, 1-15) are devoted to Greco-Roman antiquity and cover more than two thousand years of history, from the second millennium BC to early medieval Europe.

Five volumes (Classical Tradition, I-V) are uniquely concerned with the long and influential aftermath of antiquity and the process of continuous reinterpretation and revaluation of the ancient heritage, including the history of classical scholarship.

 

British and Irish Archaeological Bibliography

Access information: Access on and off campus
Description: Covers with data derived from Index of Archaeological Papers, Archaeological Bibliography of Great Britain and Ireland and British Archaeological Abstracts. Abstracts are available for most publications from 1967.
Coverage: Publications from 1695 to present day.

 

Digimap Collection

Access information: Access on and off campus. Users are required to register and agree the data licence. Follow instructions provided
Description:

Digimap is a collection of EDINA services that delivers maps and map data of Great Britain.  Maps can be viewed, annotated and printed and data can be downloaded for use in GIS or CAD software. Subscribed collections include:

For a complete description of each collection, please see the individual entries on the alphabetical databases pages.

Notes: Northern Ireland data will be removed on 31/7/20. Any Northern Ireland data stored must be deleted.

 

Dyabola

Access information: Access on and off campus. Check the IP access box then enter the 8 digit access key - find the 8 digit access key here.
Description: The Subject Catalogue of the German Archaeological Institute (DAI) in Rome.
Coverage: 1956 - present

 

Access information: Free access from HLAS Online.
Description:

A selective annotated bibliography of scholarly monographs, journal articles, conference papers, book chapters, and electronic resources dealing with Latin America. The multidisciplinary Handbook, edited by the Hispanic Division of the Library of Congress, alternates annually between the social sciences and the humanities. Disciplines covered include anthropology (including archaeology and ethnology), art, economics, electronic resources (beginning in 1995), geography, government and politics, history, international relations, literature, music, philosophy, and sociology.

Three language versions are available: English, Spanish and Portuguese.

Coverage: Continuously published since 1936.

 

Access information: Access on and off-campus. Select International Medieval Bibliography on the Brepolis Login Portal page.
Description: Covers articles published in journals and in miscellany volumes. All subjects relating to the Middle Ages are included, within the date range 300-1500 AD. Geographical areas covered are Europe, the Middle East and North Africa.

 

Access information: Access on and off campus.
Description: Full-text journal archive service providing access to complete back runs of all the scholarly journals currently available in JSTOR. Recent volumes are excluded, usually the last 3-5 years, but each year a further year is added to the archive. Each title is listed in DiscoverEd. About 4-5% of Artstor images migrated into Jstor are not accessible outside the United States.
Coverage:

The collections currently available are:

  • Arts & Sciences 1-15
  • Biological Sciences
  • Business I-IV Collection
  • Business & Economics
  • Ecology & Botany II
  • Global Plants
  • Health & General Sciences
  • Hebrew Journals
  • Ireland
  • Jewish Studies Collection
  • JSTOR Essential Collection
  • Language & Literature
  • Lives of Literature
  • Life Sciences
  • Mathematics & Statistics
  • Music
  • Religion and Theology
  • Security Studies
  • Sustainability
  • World Heritage Sites: Africa

The 19th Century British Pamphlets Collections is also available via JSTOR.  Userguides to the various collections can be found at https://guides.jstor.org

 

Online Egyptological Bibliography

Access information:

Access on or off campus.

Description: 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 Altägypten (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. OEB is a living site: improvements and extensions to functionality and to coverage are being developed and will be announced as they are introduced.

 

Access information: Access on and off-campus
Description: OHO brings together the world’s leading scholars to discuss research and the latest thinking on a range of major topics. Each Handbook offers thorough introductions to topics and a critical survey of the current state of scholarship in a particular field of study, creating an original conception of the field and setting the agenda for new research. The articles review the key issues and major debates, and provide an original argument for how those debates might evolve.
Coverage:

The following subject collections are available to the University of Edinburgh - Archaeology, Business & Management, Classical Studies, Criminology & Criminal Justice, Economics & Finance (up to 2020), History, Law, Linguistics, Literature, Music, Philosophy, Politics, Psychology, Religion and Sociology up to the end of 2021 copyright year.  If the chapters in these books have 2022 onwards updates, these will not be accessible. 

 

Oxford Reference Online

Access information: Access on and off campus.
Description: The Oxford Reference Online Collection is a vast collection of dictionaries and reference books offering over 1.8 million facts and definitions, many of them illustrated. Updated monthly with new titles, editions, factual corrections, features and functionality, the content ranges from concise definitions to in-depth articles on topics from Art to Zoology.  A title list can be found here https://www-oxfordreference-com.ezproxy.is.ed.ac.uk/browse?submittedFilterId=by-availability&isQuickSearch=true&btog=book&pageSize=20&sort=titlesort&avail_4=unlocked&avail_5=free

 

Access information: Access on and off campus.
Description: Millions of searchable citations to worldwide dissertation and theses. Around 70,000 new dissertations and theses added annually.
Coverage: Simple bibliographic citations are available for dissertations dating from 1637.  Each dissertation published since July, 1980 includes a 350-word abstract written by the author. Master's theses published since 1988 include 150-word abstracts.
Full-text: 1997 to date, with selected coverage from earlier years.  Full-text dissertations are archived as submitted by the degree-granting institution.

 

Access information: Access on and off campus.
Description: Abstract and citation database containing both peer-reviewed research literature and quality web sources.  Contains over 16 million author profiles, 70,000 institutional profiles, 5000 publishers, 70 million records, 1.4 billion cited references, covers over 20,000 journals from health, life, physical and social sciences and the humanities.
Coverage: For some subject areas, from 1788 onwards.  
User guide: https://elsevier.libguides.com/Scopus/home
Note: The University of Edinburgh's Affiliation ID is 60027272 (used for configuring Papers 3 for Mac to work with Scopus).
Note: If you would like to register to receive personalised searches, alerts etc then select "Other Institution login", then add "Edinburgh" to the search box to find the University of Edinburgh log in link, select the Shibboleth option if requested.

 

Access information: Access on and off-campus. Choose Shibboleth Log In or UK Federation.
Description: 1.5 million text records of historic monuments and of artefacts held in museums, galleries and archives, plus 500,000 related multimedia resources; video or sound clips, animations, graphics, plans, virtual reality objects and in particular, colour photographic images.
  Access to the text records and thumbnail images is freely available. Access to full resources is available under licence only, the terms of which restrict use of the material for no profit, no proliferation use in education.

 

Access information: Access on and off campus.
  Not working? Try clearing your cookies.
  Or, use Alternative login (with the VPN service if off campus) and choose Web of Science Core Collection from "All Databases" drop down menu.
Description: Part of Web of Science Core Collection. Indexes 2,100 core journals in all areas of the social sciences, plus relevant items from 3,500 scientific and technical journals. Contains over 2.3 million records.
Coverage: 1990 onwards.

 

Trismegistos

Access information:

Access on or off campus

Description:

Trismegistos is a conglomerate of databases, with Texts, Collections, Archives, People, Places, and Authors as main sections. This resource deals with texts from the ancient western world, dated between roughly 800 BC and AD 800. The eventual goal of this resource is to provide information about all texts for which there is physical evidence dated to that period but there is still a long way to go and the resource is still growing. Trismegistos was once limited to Egypt only and for some sections that is still its current limitation, for other sections the ancient western world in general is covered, or at least that expansion is underway. This resource is the result of collaboration between the universities of Leuven and Cologne, along with the support of other individual projects.

Additional information: More information about what you can expect to find in the various sections in Trismegistos can be found at https://www.trismegistos.org/guide.php

 

Access information: Available on and off campus. Some collections are only available to staff and students.
Description: These collections display highlights of the resources of the University of Edinburgh Library, principally from within Special Collections. At present there are almost 12,000 images available.
  Collections include: Hill and Adamson, the Salvsen Collection, Walter Scott Collection, Western Medieval Manuscripts, the Laing Collection, Oriental Manuscripts and Images from the School of Scottish Studies.

 

World Heritage Sites : Africa

Access information: Access on and off-campus. JSTOR are providing institutions with free access to the World Heritage Sites: Africa database through June 30th, 2022.
Description:

World Heritage Sites: Africa is a versatile collection of more than 86,000 objects of visual, contextual, and spatial documentation of African heritage and rock art sites. This collection aids researchers in African studies, anthropology, archaeology, architecture, art history, geography, history, and literature, as well as those focused on geomatics, historic preservation, urban planning, and visual and spatial technologies.

 

Related Links

Subject guide: Archaeology