Trading post excavated in Qatar: Gulf Times article

The town of al-Zubarah flourished briefly as a pearl-fishing and trading town between the mid-18th and early 19the centuries. This article from the Gulf Times reports on the excavations at this important site

Wilfred Thesiger photographs (Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford)

The Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford has been digitizing its collection of photographs by the explorer and writer, Wilfred Thesiger (1910-2003)
Click here to view some of his iconic photographs taken in Africa, the Middle East, India and Pakistan from the 1930s onwards - and buy copies if you like.

History Blogging Project: new website

The History Blogging Project is a new web site supported by the History Lab, the University of Oxford and Roehampton University and aims to create a set of training resources that will enable postgraduate students to create, maintain and publicise a blog on their research. 

Topics covered include: why blogs?, blogs to engage the public and how to write suitable content, plus discussion forums and guidelines around these issues. Also suitable for other academics interested in setting up their own blogs and discussion forums.

The site aims to be fully developed by mid-2011

Link to it from the History subject guide, under Research and Teaching

Asian Perspectives: open-access journal

The journal Asian Perspectives (published by the Center for Southeast Asian Studies at the University of Hawaii at Manoa) is  now available on open-access from Vol.1 (1957) to Vol.47 (2008).
The journal looks at the archaeology and prehistory of the Asia-Pacific region

N.B. the Library also has access to Vol.39 (2000) onwards via EBSCOHost as well as print holdings from Vol.1(1957) onwards at Per 103 / 137833

"To whom do antiquities belong?"

This is the question posed by an article in the Jewish Ideas Daily.
The waterlogged remains of an archive relating to Iraq's exiled Jewish community were discovered in a flooded Baghdad basement by American troops in 2003. The archive, which includes material dating back to the 16th century, but mainly comprises documents, personal papers and Judeo-Arabic manuscripts from the 19th and 20th centuries, has been conserved in the USA. The archive is now claimed by both Israel and Iraq as part of their heritage.

Colonial Film: Moving images of the British Empire

The Colonial Film Database is the ongoing result of a collaborative project between the British Film Institute National Archive, the Imperial War Museum, the British Empire and Commonwealth Museum, Birkbeck College and UCL.

The database has so far catalogued over 6,000 films dating from the late 1890s to the later 20th century from most countries of the former British Empire and Commonwealth. The collection ranges from dramatic "shorts" and amateur footage to official productions by organizations such as the Empire Marketing Board and the Crown Film Unit.

350 of the most important films have detailed critical notes by the project's academic research team.

150 are available to view online (Click the A-Z Films link at the bottom of the homepage to select and view)

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A companion to Byzantium: book review

Read Professor Paul Stephenson's review of the recently published "A companion to Byzantium" (edited by Liz James) in the Institute of Historical Research's Reviews in History, and her response to his critique.

If you want to see what the debate is about, you can find "A companion to Byzantium" in SOAS Library at Ref. QT949.502 / 733914

Liz James is Professor of History of Art at the University of Sussex

Professor Stephenson is a member of the Department of History at Durham University, and their Institute of Medieval and Renaissance Studies.