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Classics, Ancient History, Archaeology, and Egyptology : Databases

Hercules beating Centaur Nesso by Giambologna, Loggia dei Lanzi

Databases provide access to high-quality peer-reviewed journal articles, conference proceedings, book chapters, dissertations and many other resources. 

These databases have been especially selected for this subject area. When carrying out your research for a piece of work, you will need to search more than one database to find all of the journal articles relevant to your topic, as each database covers different journal titles.

Database Spotlight

Cover images from Texts for Historians

Translated Texts for Historians E-Library

Compiling material from 3 longstanding and well-respected book series this newly-launched digital compilation by Liverpool University Press makes available a range of historical sources from A.D. 300-800 translated into English, in many cases for the first time. Complementing the Aris & Phillips Classical Texts Online collection, the Translated Texts for Historians E-Library also extends the language pool of its source material beyond Greek and Latin to incorporate languages as varied as Armenian, Gothic and Old Irish, together with those of the Islamicate world, including Syriac and Arabic, giving researchers access and opportunity to widen both their reading and potential sources of comparison and contrast. The scope of the material within the repository is equally diverse and incorporates chronicles, letters, annals, formularies, political speeches, military and theological handbooks, poems, biblical and theological commentaries, sermons, church histories and records, Christian and pagan panegyric and polemic and lives of saints, bishops and popes.

Over 90 titles are now readily accessible and the collection might perhaps be best viewed as a foundational digital reserve for scholars operating across the Humanities at Manchester, either within the traditional confines of classics, ancient history and religions and theology, or interdisciplinary research groupings such as the Centre for Medieval and Early Modern Studies (MEMS).

In line with our standard practice to ease discovery, in addition to offering a link to the collection as a discrete database, the library has ensured that each volume - a selection of which can be seen above - is individually indexed. You can also move seamlessly across the platform to view the Aris & Phillips Classical Texts Online collection which is also now newly accessible to researchers.

Essential databases

The following are useful databases for these subject areas, however if you don't see what you're looking for, please go to the Database Directory to browse a wider selection (for subject refined lists, choose from Classics, Ancient History, Archaeology, Egyptology).

 

  • Arts & Humanities Citation Index Essential
    Arts & Humanities Citation Index is a multidisciplinary database covering the journal literature of the arts and humanities. Indexes world's leading arts and humanities journals with selected, relevant items from major science and social science journals. Searchable via Web of Science
  • Brill's New Pauly Online Essential
    Brill's New Pauly is the English edition of the authoritative Der Neue Pauly, published by Verlag J.B. Metzler since 1996. The encyclopaedic coverage and high academic standard of the work, the interdisciplinary and contemporary approach and clear and accessible presentation have made the New Pauly the unrivalled modern reference work for the ancient world.
  • Dyabola - German Archaeological Index Essential
    Dyabola gives access to the German Archaeological Institute's subject catalogues of publications on the ancient world. The material is indexed by author, title, series, periodical and publisher. It also indexes the abbreviations of periodicals.
  • Library of Latin Texts Essential
    The Library of Latin Texts (a project that was started in 1991 as the Cetedoc Library of Christian Latin Texts, CLCLT) is produced by the Centre Traditio Litterarum Occidentalium (CTLO) under the direction of Pr. Paul Tombeur. Since 2009 the Library of Latin Texts has consisted of two parts, each of which can be subscribed to separately. Now, with the byname Series A, the Library of Latin Texts steps forward together with its companion database, the Library of Latin Texts Series B, LLT-B for short, which serves as a supplement to the LLT-A. This new database often integrates huge corpora of texts and so develops at a faster pace than the LLT-A. Together, the two databases aim to input the largest possible number of Latin texts and to make them available and searchable as one large corpus. This is as a response to the growing needs of scholars to have access to a wide range of first-class text material. The two databases are continually updated with additional material.
  • Oxford Bibliographies Online: Classics Essential
    The study of the ancient world is a cornerstone of Western scholarship. It possesses a long history with a rich, well-established critical literature, and it is also a highly active field, which constantly produces new discoveries, interpretations, and theories. In addition to a vast body of scholarship, Classical Studies has been quick to move online so that todays students and researchers have ready access to key primary source texts and a range of electronic resources. Oxford Bibliographies in Classics provides students and scholars with a reliable and authoritative solution to the problem of information overload in all media.
  • Oxford Reference Online (includes Oxford Classical Dictionary) Essential
    Access to over 120 reference works covering 25 different subject areas. Bringing together 2 million digitized entries across Oxfords dictionaries, companions and encyclopedias. As you browse through Oxford Reference, you may find results that range from short-entry, general reference to more in-depth articles on specialized subjects. OXFORD REFERENCE LIBRARY In-depth, specialized titles from Oxford University Presss award-winning Encyclopedias and Companions, and a selection of partner publishers scholarly works. New titles and editions are added throughout the year, as they publish in print.
  • Patrologia Latina Database Essential
    The Patrologia Latina database is a complete version of the first edition of Jacques-Paul Migne's Patrologia Latina (1844-1855 and 1862-1865), containing all 221 volumes. Migne's Patrologia Latina was originally printed in 217 volumes from 1844 to 1855. There were two series: the series prima, volumes 1-73, (Tertullian to Gregory the Great), 1844 -1849; and the series secunda volumes 74-217, (Gregory the Great to Pope Innocent 3rd), 1849-1855. Migne himself reprinted volumes up to 1865, at which time he sold the literary rights for the Patrologia Latina to the firm of Garnier in Paris. In February of 1868, a fire destroyed Migne's presses and his printing plates. Garnier had already begun reprinting parts of the Patrologia Latina three years earlier and proceeded to reprint the entire set by 1880. Unfortunately, these reprintings - and all subsequent editions by Garnier - are inferior in a number of respects to Migne's own first editions. Consequently, copies of the first edition of the texts and indices have been used in the Patrologia Latina database, with the exception of volume 216 which uses the 1885 edition, rather than the original 1855 edition. Migne originally intended the Patrologia Latina to span the whole history of Latin Christianity up to the eve of the Reformation. However, he eventually judged that it would be wiser to conclude the series with the year 1216 as, after that year, the explosion of philosophical and theological writing made it impossible for any series to include even representative portions of the principal texts. The main chronological sequence of authors in the Patrologia Latina therefore runs from about AD 200 to AD 1216. However, Migne did incorporate medieval texts written after 1216 where these were traditionally attached to an earlier work, often as a commentary or an introduction to it. Note: Full text for certain publications is subject to market availability.
  • Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum Essential
    Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum Online provides the reader with a database of published Greek inscriptions and studies on previously known documents. It presents the complete Greek text and critical apparatus of new inscriptions and summarizes new readings, interpretations, and studies of known inscriptions, occasionally also mentioning their original text.
  • Thesaurus Linguae Graecae Essential
    The Thesaurus Linguae Graecae (TLG) is an electronic data bank of ancient Greek literature from Homer (8th century B.C.) to 600 A.D. with historiographical, lexicographical and scholiastic texts from the period between 600 and 1453 A.D. It is updated quarterly with new authors and works. Information about the authors and works included in the TLG is stored in a database, knowns as the 'Canon of Greek Authors and Works.' The TLG project is located at the University of California, Irvine
  • Trismegistos Essential
    An extensive interdisciplinary portal of papyrological and epigraphical resources, formerly limited to Egypt and the Nile valley (800 BC-AD 800), but now expanded to encompass the Ancient World in general.
  • Anthropology Plus (via Ebsco Research Databases) Essential
    Anthropology Plus combines Anthropological Literature from Harvard University and the Anthropological Index, Royal Anthropological Institute from the UK. Anthropology Plus provides worldwide indexing of journal articles, reports, commentaries, edited works, and obituaries in the fields of social, cultural, physical, biological, and linguistic anthropology, ethnology, archaeology, folklore, material culture, and interdisciplinary studies. The index offers coverage of all core periodicals in the field in addition to local and lesser-known journals. Coverage is from the late 19th century to the present
  • L'Anne philologique. Essential
    This is an index to research on all aspects of classical antiquity, which covers books, journal articles, conference proceedings and dissertations.
  • Online Egyptological Bibliography Essential
    An online version of the volumes of the previous Annual Egyptological Bibliography (AEB) combined with the Bibliographie Altagypten (BA), providing coverage of Egyptological literature from 1822 to 2002 (roughly 70,000 items).
  • Perseus Digital Library Essential
    Includes a large database of images (coins, vases, sculpture), Greek and Latin texts and translations, resources for textual studies, and English word searches of the texts.
  • Associated Press Collections Online
    Associated Press Collections Online is a publishing program focusing on making varied treasures of the Associated Press Corporate Archives, AP Images, and AP Archive available to libraries worldwide. Exploring the history and back story of the venerable Associated Press— decades' worth of wire copy, correspondence, memos, internal publications, and more — the Associated Press Collections Online meets the research needs of a variety of disciplines, and offers a cutting-edge platform designed to support that research.

Key database categories

Follow the links below to browse databases for specific types of resources.

Key Database Directory

You can use our Database Directory to browse a broader range of databases that are relevant to Classics, Ancient History, Archaeology, and Egyptology as well as other subjects. The directory also allows you to identify databases that provide access to specific types of resources (e.g. Full Text Articles, Streaming Video, Patents, Theses and Dissertations, and much more). 

Follow the links below to explore lists of databases refined by subject area.

Database Directory Classics

 

Database Directory Ancient History

 

Database Directory Archaeology

 

Database Directory Egyptology

Research at The University of Manchester

The University of Manchester's research is internationally recognised. Go to Research Explorer, Manchester's research database, to discover the breadth of research produced by staff across the University.

Browse research publications from the Department of Classics, Ancient History, Archaeology and Egyptology (please note: whilst many of the publications listed are available to access/Open Access, some records are for forthcoming titles awaiting publication).

 

Research Explorer Search Interface

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