The Parsa Community Foundation Grant to the Persepolis Fortification Archive Project

The Persian Mirror reports on the Parsa Community Foundation grant to the Persepolis Fortification Archive Project.

For over 80 years, the University of Chicago’s Oriental Institute has been a pioneer and innovator in exploring the world's earliest civilizations in the ancient Near East. In 1933, the Institute discovered thousands of clay tablets and fragments during their archeological excavations of historic sites in Iran. These ancient artifacts are on long-term loan from the government of Iran and were left in the Institute's care for purposes of translation, study and publication. They make up the Persepolis Fortification Archive (PFA) and constitute a rich source for the research of the history, languages, art and society of the 2,500 year-old Achaemenid Persian Empire. The artificats are in danger of being seized and put up for public auction to compensate plaintiffs in a private lawsuit against the government of Iran. The institute is operating under emergency conditions to prevent interruption of the preservation of these tablets and PARSA CF's continuing support will fund conservators in prompt delivery of digital photography, translation and editing. The University of Chicago is a second-time PARSA CF grantee and a model conservation effort.

This is the second time the Parsa Community Foundation has made a grant to the Persepolis Fortification Archive Project.

The Oriental Institute and Digitized Books

Starting in 2005, the Oriental Institute committed to digitizing all of its publications and making them available online, without charge. The minimum for each volume, old and new, current and forthcoming, will be a Portable Document Format (PDF) version following current resolution standards. New publications appear online at or near the time they appear in print. Older publications will be processed as time and funding permits. More than one hundred volumes are now online. All of these volumes are accessible thought the catalogue of publications produced by the Oriental Institute Publications Office. They are also accessible, gathered in a single convenient list, at AWOL - The Ancient World Online - 2, as well as in a contribution to this blog.

The Oriental Institute was one of the founding members of the ETANA partnership, and the Research Archives gave access to many of books scanned for inclusion in ETANA Core Texts. As of today (1 July 2008) there are 355 digitized books and one developing resource (eTACT) in ETANA Core Texts. In response to numerous request, I present here in AWOL - The Ancient World Online - 6 all of those titles in a single list organized alphabetically by author's name.