Egypt : Ancient History

Contents:

• Purpose
• Scope
• Indexes to the catalogue
• Structure of the annotations
• Types of item excluded from the catalogue
• Other catalogues
• About me

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Purpose

This project is a series of pages constructed as a required assignment for Victoria University of Wellington's MLIS paper: LIBR 533 Advanced Information Retrieval.   This particular page is an overview of the intent & layout of my project.

Scope

This site is a selected, annotated catalogue of  WWW hypertext documents (or "articles") which I consider useful to those studying the Ancient History of Egypt, especially Middle Kingdom & New Kingdom/Empire periods. (cf. Items excluded, below)

Indexes to the catalogue

The annotations/reviews themselves are on a series of web-pages in no particular order.   The best way to reach a relevant review is by one of the following indexes, based on the original article's:

1. Author -- the names of  the author(s) / editor(s) / compiler(s),  after the style given on the web-document.   If there is no clear personal "author" or maintainer, an appropriate corporate author has been entered.   If there are more than three names, then only the first name is in the index.
2. Title -- or first heading, if there is no obvious title.   Arranged alphabetically.   Any initial grammatical article (A, An, The) is omitted.   The title of the HTML-source is also indexed, if it is significantly different from the web-document's title.
3. Key-term -- upto 50 appropriate key-word or key-phrases, arranged alphabetically relating to the article itself.   Additional, explanatory text has been added to some terms.   Entries in the index are under consistent standardized forms.
4. Chronological term -- appropriate time spans (periods, dynasties, individual reigns) as used in the article itself.   Entries in the index are in the form and chronological order given in the Cambridge Ancient History, 3rd ed.

Structure of the annotations

Every annotation has the following order:

• Title: The title or first heading of the article, possibly abbreviated or shortened.   Clicking on the title will take you to the article itself.
• Abstract: 1-3 sentence summary of the article's purpose or content -- preferably, but rarely, extracted from the article's own text.
• Author: Brief note on the author(s) including periodicals to which they have contributed -- usually the information is harvested from the article or authors' home pages.   Clicking on an author's name (if the link exists) will take you to his/her home page.
• Key-terms: selected, appropriate words and phrases appearing in the article itself; but omitting all subjects mentioned only briefly (e.g., merely 2 short sentences, or less).   The spelling of proper names is that used by the article itself, unless it has failed to be self consistent.   The corresponding spelling in the Key-term Index may have been standardized.
• Chronology: selected, appropriate chronological periods, dynasties, and reigns appearing in the article itself, unless mentioned only briefly.   The spelling of reigning kings is that used by the article itself (unless it has failed to be self consistent).   The corresponding spelling in the Chronological Index has probably been standardized.   Occassionally this annotation has been omitted, if irrelevant or only incidental to the article.
• Opinion: My own comments; I apologise if they seem too negative. Actually every annotated article in this has at least some merit, or else it wouldn't be listed. I have not created any direct links to pages considered inappropriate, offensive, or sub-standard.

All articles were last visited 17-Feb-97, or later.

Items excluded from the scope

• This scope clearly excludes discussing non-Web facilities at particular institutions.
• The assignment's scope prohibits coverage of forthcoming exhibits, unless there is sufficient text to be of use to a student -- even if exhibitions would probably be of interest (e.g., the "Ancient Nubia: Egypt's Rival in Africa" Gallery of Artifacts).
• The scope (and integrity) forbids any coverage of the many pseudo-studies which plague Egyptology: ridiculous when pretentious and appalling when sincere.
• Other catalogues -- see below:

Other Catalogues

Because I have limited this catalogue to articles; don't assume that there are no other suitable indexes or catalogues.   In fact, I heartily recommend ABZU's REGIONAL INDEX: EGYPT, an experimental guide to Ancient Near Eastern Internet resources.   It is an Associate Site of the Argos search engine under the auspices of The Research Archives of the Oriental Institute, Chicago.   Note especially its own indexes of

• PHILOLOGY - TEXTS - TRANSLATIONS online grammars, translations, etc.
• Alphabetical listing of Internet Resources (by author)

About me

I'm Michael Parkinson.   I have an M.A.(Hons) Auck. in Ancient History, and have just completed a M.L.I.S. Vic.   I work at the Acquisitions dept. in the University of Auckland library.

              | Author Index |        | Title Index |        | Key-term Index |        | Chronological Index |