All Guides: Classical Mediterranean and Middle East: Art and Architecture of the Ancient Near East

Arts & Humanities and Special Collections Librarian

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Subjects: Architecture, Art & Art History, Asian Languages and Cultures, Classical Mediterranean and Middle East, Dance, English, French and Francophone Studies, German Studies, Religious Studies, Russian Studies

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Good starting points for your research

Index Islamicus

Indexes worldwide literature in European languages on Islam, the Middle East and the Muslim world. Covers Muslim life including history, beliefs, societies, cultures, languages and literatures. Includes journals, conference proceedings, monographs and book reviews. Journals and books indexed o the article and chapter level.

Art Full Text

The main database for research in art and art history. Includes both popular and academic titles.

Annee Philologique

A comprehensive index to scholarly work in in the Greek and Roman areas of Classical Studies, as well as on ancient Greek and Latin linguistics and language. Concerns the time period from the second millennium B.C. to roughly 500-800 A.D. Includes coverage of research collections and conferences.

Historical Abstracts with Full Text

Index to journal articles in history, especially non-US history, covering 1450-present.

Bibliography of Asian Studies (BAS)

Indexes Western language literature including books, chapters from books, periodical articles and pamphlets on Asian studies.

Perseus Digital Library

Digital library of source materials for the study of the ancient world and beyond from the Tufts University Department of Classics.

Sources for Images

The most used image collections for general research in art history

Artstor This link opens in a new window
Library of high quality digital images of artistic photographs and artwork from museums and collections worldwide.
Macalester Art History Digital Collection This link opens in a new window
Database of high quality digital images collected and maintained by the Art Department at Macalester.

Other image collections for more specialized work

Ancient Western Asian Seals & Tablets (Morgan Library & Museum)
The Morgan's seals collection is one of the most distinguished in the United States and among the best known in the world. ... The seals collection covers all the significant styles of Mesopotamian engraving from the end of the fifth millennium B.C. to the fourth century B.C. as well as most of the styles of other countries of ancient Western Asia. Areas of particular strength include seals of the second millennium B.C. made outside southern Mesopotamia (Cappadocia, Syria, and Mitannia) as well as Old Babylonian and Neo-Assyrian seals. The Middle Assyrian seals are among the finest in any collection. --Website

Art Images for College Teaching This link opens in a new window
Source of images organized into five broad historical eras. Each image has basic data, instructions for downloading, and where it is referenced from a list of basic art history texts.
British Library Images Online This link opens in a new window
Holds the King's Library, manuscripts, rare books, musical texts, maps, illustrations, drawings, paintings and photographs spanning almost 3000 years.

British Museum
Museum of world history and culture in London
Oriental Institute: Collections
The Oriental Institute Museum at the University of Chicago was opened to the public in 1931. The majority of the collections of the Oriental Institute came from its expeditions in the Middle East during the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s. --Website
Yale Babylonian Collection
The Yale Babylonian Collection comprises over 45,000 items, including cuneiform tablets, cylinder seals, and other artifacts... [it] is one of the largest collection[s] of seals and textual material from ancient Mesopotamia in North America and ranks among the leading collections in the world. --Website

Reference Resources for Art & Art HIstory

Oxford Art Online This link opens in a new window
Access to the "The Dictionary of Art" (formerly known as "The Grove Dictionary of Art") and "The Oxford Companion to Western Art." Offers additions of new and updated articles, thumbnail art images and line drawings displayed in the text of articles.
Oxford Reference Online This link opens in a new window
Resource of reference materials such as dictionary, language reference, and subject reference works published by Oxford University Press. Provides database-wide searching, subject searching across sources, and individual title searching.

MetPublications
Searchable and in many cases downloadable publications from the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy This link opens in a new window
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Organizes scholars from around the world in philosophy and related disciplines to create and maintain an up-to-date reference work. Great resource for background information on social and political theory.

Citation in Art History

The most commonly used citation style in historical scholarship, including art history, is Chicago, notes and bibliography. Check out our Citation Guide for more info on Chicago Manual of Style and other citation styles including Modern Language Association (MLA). For help with citing primary sources, see this resource from the Library of Congress, and this resource from Macalester's Visual Resources Library for help citing images,

Writing Guides and Resources

Artist Statement Guidelines from GYST
A resource from Getting Your Sh*t Together to help artists think through the elements to draft an artist statement.
more...less...
GYST-Ink is an artist-run company providing information, technology and solutions created by artists for artists. --Website

A Short Guide to Writing about Art by Sylvan Barnet
Call Number: eBook at MAC Lower Level - Art Collection N7476 .B37 2015
ISBN: 9780205886999
Publication Date: 2014-01-15
This text guides art students through the writing process. Students are shown how to analyze pictures (drawings, paintings, photographs), sculptures and architecture. The text includes: coverage of essential writing assignments including formal analysis, comparison, research paper, review of an exhibition, essay examination; clear step-by-step writing instructions guiding students though the research and writing processes; sample essays, with analytic comments by the author, demonstrating the virtues of effective writing. --Catalog record
Writing about Art by Henry M. Sayre This straightforward guide prepares students to describe, interpret, and write about works of art in meaningful and lasting terms. Designed as a supplement to Art History survey and period texts, this efficient book features a step-by-step approach to writing--from choosing a work to write about, to essay organization, to research techniques, to footnote form, to preparing the final essay. For beginners as well as more advanced students [Publisher description]
Call Number: eBook, and MAC Lower Level - Art Collection N7476 .S29 2009
ISBN: 9780205645787
Publication Date: 2008-07-10

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Classical Mediterranean and Middle East