Hints for beginning research on a topic
The Caminos library is essentially a scholarly library, and is organised in order to facilitate serious research. Familiarity with basic methods of research as well as the form of bibliographies and references etc. is essential to anyone wishing to use the collection to best advantage. Once you have got to grips with a few essential research tools, and the library catalogue and system of classification, you will be able to conduct thorough research on almost any topic in Egyptology. In addition, the librarian is very willing to advise members on more general reading.
The tools described below will direct you to available sources of information on your topic, while the catalogue and this guide will help you to track them down in the library.
For comprehensive lists of books and articles:
Produced annually since 1947, The Annual Egyptological Bibliography (AEB) lists all books and articles published in Egyptology each year, with short abstracts of their content. Originally these were arranged alphabetically by author; from 1970 to 1999 entries were grouped by subject; arrangement is now again alphabetical. C. Beinlich-Seeber has produced a bibliography of books and articles published between 1822 and 1946 (Bibliographie Altägypten, Wiesbaden 1998). Both these print publications have now been superseded by a searchable database on CD-ROM for the years 1822 to 1997 and now also by a more up-to-date online version - see here.
For general topics:
Four encyclopaedias provide information on general Egyptological topics, with references to further reading. The most comprehensive of these is the W. Helck, E. Otto, and W. Westendorf (eds.), Lexikon der Ägyptologie (Wiesbaden 1975–92; abbreviated LÄ). The majority of the articles in this are in German, with some in French and English. For ease of access members may prefer D. B. Redford (ed.), The Oxford Encyclopaedia of Ancient Egypt (New York 2001). A series of excellent introductory essays on a broad range of topics is available in J. M. Sasson (ed.), Civilizations of the Ancient Near East (New York 1995). Slightly more specialized, but very useful, is K. A. Bard (ed.), Encyclopedia of the Archaeology of Ancient Egypt (London 1999).
For sites and monuments:
The brainchild of F. Ll. Griffith, the Topographical Bibliography of Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphic Texts, Reliefs, and Paintings, commonly known by the names of its first editors, ‘Porter and Moss’ (abbreviated to PM), now runs to 8 volumes, listing all known Egyptian sites and monuments, with maps, plans, brief descriptions and references to further (published and unpublished) sources of information. While several of the volumes have not been updated for many years, PM is the starting point for research into any specific site or monument. Bard, Encyclopaedia, has entries on many sites with up-to-date bibliographies. For recent fieldwork in Egypt, see the lists of excavations with brief details of discoveries etc. in ‘Digging Diary', published twice annually in Egyptian Archaeology: The Bulletin of the EES.
These tools are at the beginning of a kind of paper trail. The key to that trail is to be able to follow (and sometimes to decode!) bibliographical references. Forms of referencing vary, but a few conventions are common to most of them. Anything written in italics is the title of the publication itself, whether a book or a periodical. The titles of periodicals in particular have standard abbreviated forms, and a list of some of those kept in the library can be found here. A title written in plain text and quotes is generally the name of an article, chapter, or other entry within a publication such as a periodical or book, the name of which should then follow in italics. For example:
Spencer, P A and Spencer, A J, ‘Notes on Late Libyan Egypt’ JEA 72 (1986), 198-201.
This refers to an article on Libyan Period Egypt by Patricia and Jeffrey Spencer, published in the Journal of Egyptian Archaeology volume 72, published in 1986, on pages 198-201
A word of caution
In general, the amount of reliable information published on the internet remains small in comparison with what is available in print. While it is always important to read sources critically, most of the literature accessible through the bibliographic tools listed above has been subject to strict editorial procedures that act as a guarantee of quality and can therefore be relied upon. Much material published online is not subject to editorial control and so should be treated with caution. Nonetheless, the amount of good material accessible online is increasing. Very useful lists of what is available are maintained by Nigel Strudwick, a curator in the Department of Ancient Egypt and Sudan at the British Museum, on his website ‘Egyptology Resources’. Furthermore, there are now a number of journals online with articles usually made available as pdf files: British Museum Studies in Ancient Egypt and Sudan and the Journal of Egyptian History are published exclusively online, while various traditional, printed journals have been retrospectively digitised in their entirety, notably Bulletin de l’Institut Français d’Archéologie Orientale (BIFAO) and the Bulletin of the Museum of Fine Arts (Boston), while others are being made available with each new issue published (see for example, those published by Peeters of Leuven in Belgium).