ISAW announces the digital publication of ‘Ain el-Gedida: 2006-2008 Excavations of a Late Antique Site in Egypt's Western Desert (Amheida IV)
The Institute for the Study of the Ancient World and NYU Press are pleased to announce the open access digital publication of ‘Ain el-Gedida: 2006-2008 Excavations of a Late Antique Site in Egypt's Western Desert (Amheida IV) by Nicola Aravecchia, with contributions by Roger S. Bagnall, Pamela Crabtree, Delphine Dixneuf, Dorota Dzierzbicka, Douglas V. Campana, and David M. Ratzan. The book offers a systematic record and interpretation of the archaeological evidence from the excavations at ‘Ain el-Gedida, a fourth-century rural settlement in Egypt's Dakhla Oasis, important for the study of early Egyptian Christianity. Originally published in print in 2019, this new edition faithfully reproduces the print edition while giving scholars and the general public the affordances of a truly digital edition. All corrections and changes to the original text are collected in a page of errata.
Read the new digital edition of ‘Ain el-Gedida: 2006-2008 Excavations of a Late Antique Site in Egypt's Western Desert (Amheida IV) now.
ISAW Monographs publishes authoritative studies of new evidence and research into the texts, archaeology, art history, material culture, and history of the cultures and periods representing the core areas of study at the Institute for the Study of the Ancient world and reflecting its intellectual mission. As an extension of that mission, ISAW has partnered with the NYU Division of Libraries and the NYU Press to publish both print and open access digital versions of its books, the latter under the aegis of the Ancient World Digital Library. From the outset, these online digital versions have aimed to provide clear presentations of the book structure and content with attention to links to supplementary material and related digital resources, and in particular linked open data resources. A secondary aim was to create digital versions that were not only open access, but also technically non-complex and lightweight, so that they could be accessed easily across the globe. The digital versions have been produced with the open-source Quarto scientific publishing system and includes such features as full-text search, dynamic tables generated directly from datasets and plates that can be isolated and magnified by the user using the Lightbox library, among others.
With the publication of the digital edition of ʿAin el-Gedida (Amheida IV), we continue this tradition of online monograph publication but in a new and more visually engaging format. The goal is still a clear presentation of the original volume's structure and content, but with a reconsideration of how the online version may best serve the argument of the book, the presentation of its datasets and catalogs, the presentation and reuse of its images, and the organization and reuse of its bibliographic information. The result is a volume that can be read as a website.
We introduce these features with the goal of making the volume as useful as possible to its scholarly audience. Accordingly, we welcome your feedback on this book-as-website experiment so that we can ensure that such features do in fact enhance the reader's experience, both in this volume and in many more to come in the ISAW Digital Monographs series.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Nicola Aravecchia is Associate Professor of Classics and of Art History and Archaeology at Washington University in St. Louis. He is the Archaeological Field Director at Amheida or ancient Trimithis in the Dakhla oasis and the author of Early Christianity at Amheida (Egypt's Dakhla Oasis): A Fourth-Century Church (Amheida VII).
About ISAW Monographs
ISAW Monographs publishes authoritative studies of new evidence and research into the texts, archaeology, art history, material culture, and history of the cultures and periods representing the core areas of study at NYU's Institute for the Study of the Ancient World. The topics and approaches of the volumes in this series reflect the intellectual mission of ISAW as a center for advanced scholarly research and graduate education whose aim is to encourage the study of the economic, religious, political, and cultural connections between ancient civilizations, from the Western Mediterranean across the Near East and Central Asia, to China.
As with ISAW Papers, ISAW's born-digital journal, ISAW is committed to publishing all volumes of ISAW Monographs free and online for the interested public and scholarship community in a timely fashion. Currently, five volumes of ISAW Monographs are available free online via the ISAW Publications page.
Information about previous volumes, including how to order them in both print and online versions, is available via the ISAW Publications page page and the NYU Press website. For information or questions about ISAW Monographs and ISAW's publishing projects, please email David M. Ratzan: david.ratzan at nyu.edu. To request review copies, please email Furqan Sayeed (mfs454 at nyu.edu).
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Contact: david.ratzan@nyu.edu