The EAWC Internet Index
Description and Directions: The EAWC Internet Index tracks a variety of resources that are relevant to ancient and medieval times and that might prove useful to students and teachers who are engaged in serious study. It is divided into five sub-indices: a chronology, an essay index, an image index, an internet site index and a primary text index. Each of these is further divided into sections, one for each of the cultures represented: the Near East, India, Egypt, China, Greece, Rome, Early Islam and Medieval Europe.
Access to the various indices and sections is possible by way of the two menu boxes that appear under "Navigate the EAWC Internet Index" in the tool bar at the top of each page. Select an index using the first box and a section using the second. Then, click "Go".
Except in the case of the chronology, selecting "Global" in the second menu box refers you to a page that describes the particular index in more detail, that provides a list of general resources that are not easily assigned to one of the particular cultures, or that lists the source for many of the items that appear on the other pages of the same index. In the case of the chronology, selecting "Global" will refer you to a master chronology that consolidates all of the data in the chronology files.
Trick: Selecting "Chronology" in the first menu box will refer you to the start of the chronology for the section named in the second box. You may specify a different starting point, by entering a date in the search box that appears under the words "Search the Ancient and Medieval Internet" before clicking "Go". The starting date must begin with either a minus sign ("-") for dates BCE or a plus sign ("+") for dates CE. After clicking "Go," you will be referred to the closest date available in the chronology for the selected section. Note well that you must click "Go" to enter the chronology at a specified date and not "Argos". If you do click "Argos," you will execute a search (see below) for the date entered; but, since Argos does not track dates, it will reply with an empty set.
In most cases, hyperlinked dates throughout this project refer to a Chronological Space/Time Index that allows users to move around the chronology with ease. For an example, click 600 BCE.
Items in the image and text indices that are followed by dates are cross-referenced by the chronology. To see these items embedded in the chronology files, visit the chronology directly or click the relevant date and follow the directions for using the Space/Time Index.
The EAWC Internet Index is an associate site of the Argos Project, an internet search engine that limits the range of its responses to ancient and medieval resources. This means that most of the files listed here, along with most of those listed in the other associate sites, can be searched by way of Argos. To do so, enter a request in the search box under "Search the Ancient and Medieval Internet" and click "Argos," or visit the project's homepage and continue from there. For help in formulating queries, see the Argos help page.
All of the links that appear in SMALL CAPITAL LETTERS are direct links to Argos. These are particularly prominent in the chronology files. If you click one of them, you will be referred to an Argos return set. For an example, try EAWC. (Clicking the Argos button when the search box is empty will also execute a search for "EAWC," returning a list of the files that make up this site.)
The resources in this index are assigned to particular cultures based on several factors, not all of which will be readily apparent to the reader. Because the close proximity of cultures makes it difficult to determine precisely where one culture ends and another begins, particularly respecting those of the Mediterranean basin and the Near East, though the Middle Ages present difficulties of their own, readers should be aware that the divisions here are meant only to provide a topology for classifying resources and should not be taken to imply anything definitive about cultural identities. In any case, because all of the links in this index are searched and catalogued by the Argos Project, the cultural lines delimited here will blur (appropriately) when examining resources with the help of Argos.
This index is part of Exploring Ancient World Cultures, an initiative to produce a college-level textbook on the World-Wide Web that is available to everyone free of charge. Please help out in this effort by nominating resources or offering comments or corrections. To do so, send E-mail to the editor, Anthony F. Beavers, at firstname.lastname@example.org. All resources will be evaluated before being added.
For more information about this website or to report any problems, please email Tony Beavers.