Martell's PRIME SITES: History

COUNTRIES

Ancient Egypt

China (Sung & Qing Dynasty)

Turkey (Ottoman Empire)

England (19th Century)

South Africa (20th Century)

Ancient Egypt Sites

ABZU: Regional Index: Egypt

An outstanding scholarly resource for the study of Ancient Egypt. Major categories include archaeological sites, art, museums and collections, philology – texts – translations, and resources listed alphabetically by author. All the resources listed by author are available online. Examples of full-text articles are "The Study of the Miracles Which Occurred During the Rule of Khufu" appearing under the philology – texts – translations heading and "Life and Death Under the Pharaohs" under the museums and collections heading.

Ancient Egypt
	Contains a 6-page listing of guides, indices, and links relating to Egyptology and other subjects on Ancient Egypt as well as sections on archaeological sites and periods, archives, institutes, general, and art, science, and society.

Ancient Egypt Virtual Tour

The tour shows four graphical images of a temple from the exterior to the inner rooms. More traditional at this lavishly illustrated site by Christina are the Egyptology links, the lengthy list of scholarly texts and suggested readings with a heavy use of cross-links to amazon.com if one is inclined to buy a book or two. The Healing Sanctuary section has a good set of links to resources on healing.

Ancient Egyptian Culture Exhibit

A well-designed attractive site with sections including architecture, art, daily life, maps, and military. The section on daily life has 1 to 2 page descriptions with helpful cross-links of the Nile, astrology, calendar system, priestly caste, and medicine. See the link under medicine (http://www.indiana.edu/~ancmed/egypt.HTM) at Indiana University. It is dedicated to the study of ancient medicine. There is another interesting link to the subject of Plumbing in Egypt.

Arab Net
	This well-designed online resource for the Arab world in the Middle East and North Africa includes a relatively brief history of each country. The history of Egypt is divided into 21 historical periods.

Duke Papyrus Archives

This fine archive provides electronic access to texts and images of 1,373 papyri from Ancient Egypt. The section Papyri in General includes a nicely illustrated text "Writing in Egypt under Greek and Roman Rule" and another "Late Antique Egypt." The papyri are organized by selected topics and by language. Among the selected topics are cultural aspects, religious aspects, slaves, and women and children. There are images of over 100 papyri in the category of women and children with a full description of each item and a translation.

Egypt Interactive
	Provides a good Top Ten selection of Internet resources on Egypt and textual materials in the scholarly, academic, historical, and archaeology sections.

Egyptology Resources
	Major sections include the Tomb of Senneferi, institutions and museums, and list of essential resources. Among the essential sites is a link to an 83-page bibliography citing all the articles that appeared in the Annual Egyptological Bibliography from 1996-1998. Full-text articles from the journal Archaeology Online and others are available in the journals, magazines, and newspapers section.

Guardian’s Egypt
	This attractively designed site has a set of well-chosen links to resources on Ancient Egypt, mummies, kings and pharaohs, mythology and religion, and sites and monuments. See especially the online interactive book at the Ancient Egypt Site under the Guardian’s heading Ancient Egypt. A nicely crafted description of general purpose accompanies each link.

History of Egypt
	This attractive and easy to use resource is the Official Internet Site of the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism. It provides an outline of the historical periods and dynasties leading to essays of varying length up to ten pages. There are also helpful cross-links with substantive commentary.

Life in Ancient Egypt
	Brief beautifully illustrated descriptions of daily life, gods and religion, natural world, and other subjects are provided as a context for the display of artifacts in the Carnegie Museum of Natural History collection.

China Sites
(Sung Dynasty - 960-1279)
(Qing Dynasty - 1644-1911)

Academic Info China Studies: History
	An impressive annotated directory of Internet resources. The selection is very good for history and there are additional equally valuable resources listed under the category of China Studies for Digital Library, Language & Linguistics, and Religion & Philosophy. Each of these provides general directories, resources for specific eras or subjects, e.g., Taoism, and reference materials.

Chinascape: Chinese Web Index
	The history section to be found under the heading of Chinese Culture lists 17 sites, including 100 Chinese Emperors and 100 Celebrated Chinese Women. The biographies of 20 emperors and 60 celebrated women are available and more are being added regularly.

Chinese Culture

An impressive compilation of course materials with many full-text document. Under the Quick Guide to Course Handouts and Guides there are three entries to the substantive materials gathered by Paul Halsall on Chinese culture – list of texts on this site, list of images on this site, and other China web sites. In the list of texts section there are original source texts, basic guides to Chinese culture, and locally prepared reference texts including a 31-page annotated bibliography.

Chinese History Research Site
	The outline format is cross-linked to a 16-page bibliography on Modern Chinese History. There are also links to online catalogs and China-related web sites. A 1 to 3 line description is provided for each listing.

Classical Historiography for Chinese History

Contains a 5-page listing of bibliographies, biographies, dictionaries, and related introductory resources, a 14-page listing of electronic resources for Chinese classical studies, and bibliographies on relevant topics. The materials referred to in the bibliographies are in most cases available only in print and are not online. Some of the sites are in Chinese. The listings in the electronic resources section are heavily annotated and some are cross-linked to the sites themselves.

Complete Reference to China/Chinese-Related Web Sites
	More than 1,000 sites are listed. Unfortunately, the Chinese history section has only 8 sites listed at the present time.

Condensed China
	This Chinese history for beginners has a bibliography and sections on the origins of China, early empire, second empire, and birth of modern China. The descriptions are relatively brief. The section on modern China has 6 pages.

History of China
	Organized by timeline, history, and sites. The timeline is extensive. An outline format is used for the history section. The source for this section is a history of China published in 1994. Graphics enhance the text. Many of the cross-links are to resources in Chinese.

Internet Guide for China Studies
	A very good resource with 61 main entries under the heading of history. Each site is carefully described with lengthy annotations. Essential sites are highlighted.

John Fairbank Memorial Chinese History Virtual Library
	An attractive site with relatively few pre 20th century resources. The sections on the Republican Era and the People’s Republic of China are more substantive with several full-text documents.

Literature and Philosophy
	Some of the literary and philosophical texts accessible through this site are in translation such as Sunzi’s The Art of War but many are not. A modest number of more general sites are listed as well.

People’s Republic of China
	A modest listing of various types of sites. There are three history sections – general, prehistory to the Qing, and Qing Dynasty. The Qing section is weak due in part to the scarcity of Internet resources on the pre-20th century history of China.

Women in Chinese History
	A 9-page bibliography on the role of Chinese women in politics, literature, and work.

Turkey (Ottoman Empire) 1300-1924

Islam and Islamic History in Arabia and The Middle East - The Ottomans
	There are 3 pages on the Ottoman Turks and 1 page in the preceding section on the Seljuk Turks.

Istanbul - Ottoman Period
	A beautifully illustrated 6-page description of Istanbul during the Ottoman Period. Click on Contents at the bottom of this section and Anatolian Civilizations on the next screen to get the history page. It has a 6-page essay on the Ottoman Civilization.

Ottoman Empire
	An attractive site with 4 to 10 page historical descriptions of Anatolia, Ottoman Empire, and Turkish Republic as well as material on land and resources, government and economy.

The Ottoman Khilafa
	This site is devoted largely to a history of the Ottoman Empire. The descriptions of various aspects of Ottoman history are brief. There is a section on the military ranks with illustrations of uniforms and another with images of each of the caliphs.

The Ottoman Turks
	A beautifully illustrated 4-page description of the Ottoman Turks with a few cross-links to other material. This is part of a course The End of Europe’s Middle Ages.

The Ottomans
	There are 1 to 2 page descriptions of the origins of the Ottoman Empire, Suleyman, Selim II, 17th & 18th centuries, and European imperialism and the Balkan crisis.

Republic of Turkey
	In the Reference Library section there is a selected bibliography and a multi-page essay "Who Are the Turks?" The essay links to the Seljuks and The Cradle of Civilizations where one finds brief descriptions of the various ethnic peoples of Turkey.

Rivals to Rome - The Ottoman Sultans
	This site is most useful for finding the names and dates of the reign of Middle Eastern sultans, caliphs, and emperors. The content outline includes the Seljuk Sultans and Ottoman Sultans & Caliphs, 1290-1924 A.D. The section on the Ottomans has maps and a brief text.

Turkey - A Country Study
	The Federal Research Division of the Library of Congress prepared this report on Turkey. A content outline is used to provide access to 2 to 3 pages descriptions of various topics. Chapter 1 – Historical Settings has sections on the rise and decline of the Ottoman Empire.

Turkey in Europe & Europe in Turkey
	This book by Turgut Ozal has 10 chapters on the Ottoman Empire. Chapters are usually about 5 pages long.

England (19^th century)

Britannia Internet: British History
	An attractive site with timelines, documents, biographies, essays, and reading lists on the history of Britain. The 19th century Age of Empire section has the biographies of the monarchs and prime ministers and some texts including Europe in Retrospect: A Brief History of the Past Two Hundred Years.

GenDocs: Victorian London

Contains lists of streets, churches, cemeteries, lodging houses, inns, taverns & public houses, census indexes and other data about aspects of the city of London in the 1800s. Some of the lists are organized with A-Z indexes to facilitate searching by alphabet. Also included are a Timeline of British history, Greenwood’s Map of London (1827) with zoom and directional features, and population charts of Great Britain and other parts of the British Isles going back to the 1600s. There are links to related sites.

Internet Library of Early Journals

This is a digital library of 6 key 18th and 19th century British journals – Annual Register, Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, The Builder, Gentlemen’s Magazine, Notes & Queries, and Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. Substantial runs (at least 20 consecutive years) of each journal can be browsed. Four titles are currently available to be searched by keyword. A search of Notes and Queries for former Prime Minister Robert Peel retrieved 80 entries.

Spartacus Internet Encyclopedia: British History 1700-1920

This outstanding site is full of valuable information attractively presented with a superb use of cross-links and a wide range of historical topics. The section on Members of Parliament covers the period 1750-1950. It contains substantive biographies of scores of individuals. Biographies in the sections on The Monarchy 1760-1930 and The Prime Ministers 1780-1950 are similarly strong. The section on the Emancipation of Women 1780-1920 contains resources on subjects such as marriage, schooling, pressure groups, strategy & tactics and parliamentary reform acts. The section on Child Labour 1700-1900 describes life in the factory, provides biographies of factory workers, and offers some statistics, e.g., comparative weight of factory and non-factory children.

UK Archival Repositories on the Internet

Many archival repositories have Internet sites. Presently few of them have anything more than catalogs or other listings of their resources. This site provides a brief description of each repository. Fortunately, the number of repository sites with substantive texts and images available online is increasing at a steady rate. One of these is the Special Collections and Archives at the University of Aberdeen. Its online version of and background information about the Aberdeen Bestiary are wonderful.

Victoria Research Web

Created for the scholarly study of the nineteenth century in Britain this fine site has a wealth of bibliographic and other information. In the Archives section there are entries for Key Works of Reference, 19th Century Census Data, and Guide to Victorian Holdings in Selected Archives in Britain and the U.S. Most of the resources are only available through a research trip to the location but some can be obtained online, e.g., census data for 1831, 1851, and 1881 are available from The Data Archive at the University of Essex. The Other Victorian Resources section has an excellent annotated guide to related areas to explore on the Web.

Victorian Web

A major resource with connections from the subjects of Victorianism, Political Context, Social Context, and Economics to historical outlines with links to a wide range of materials including essays by professors and students and textual materials from the 19th century and earlier. There is a lengthy timeline in the Political Context section. Other subjects such as philosophy and science are covered as well as materials on Contemporary Post-Colonial and Post-Imperialist Literature in English at http://www.stg.brown.edu/projects/hypertext/landow/post/misc/postov.html.

Victorian Web Sites

A massive site with access to a wonderful array of full-text resources. The section Victorian Web Sites provides links to 312 sites. The 17-page section on 19th Century British and Irish Authors lists authors and their works in chronological order. The majority of these works is available online. The 35-page section British and Irish Authors on the Web is equally strong with 790 authors listed and a significant number of full-text resources accessible at many of the sites. English Literature on the Web is another important strength of this fine site.

South Africa (20^th century)

Africa South of the Sahara: South Africa: History
	An excellent selection of well annotated sites on the history of South Africa. Africa South of the Sahara has an impressive 28 pages of sites on African history.

African National Congress

The Index to ANC Information leads to ANC Historical Documents, Books, and other topics of interest. The section on Historical Documents of the African National Congress (ANC) provides basic documents about the ANC in categories such as major campaigns and struggles against apartheid, organizations allied or associated with the ANC, boycotts, biographies of leaders, and the transition period. There are 10 complete books including Class & Colour in South Africa, 1850-1950 and Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since the European War and the Boer Rebellion. Articles from Mayibuye, the Journal of the African National Congress appear under Publications.

African Studies: South Africa
	A modest list of sites on a range of topics that includes reference, electronic journals, and culture and history. Under this latter heading there are 7 sites. See especially the interesting and well-designed Annenberg/CPB Project Exhibit "South Africa – Can a Country Overcome Its History?"

Battlefields.co.za
	The Historical Library has resources on Zulu History, Voortrekkers, Anglo-Zulu War, First War of Independence, Anglo-Boer War and Bambatha Rebellion in 1906. Many of the battles are described. Some have images. There is also a short list of links.

Contemporary Conflicts in Africa

This impressive specialized site focuses primarily on 11 conflict topics that include conflict issues, peace building, and peace operations. Click on any of the countries highlighted on the Contemporary Conflict Map in Africa to obtain historical background on the conflict, refugee situation, reference information, and more general sources. The Country Information section has several valuable resources. One of these is the World Bank: Social Indicators, a major reference work that can be searched by key variables and country.

Historical Documents
	Significant collections in the Department of Historical Documents, University of Witwatersrand Library are listed and a short biography, two letters, extracts from some speeches, and some quotes of Robert Sobukwe 1942-1977, early leader of the Pan Africanist Congress, are provided. The collections are not accessible online.

Index on Africa: South Africa
	A well annotated 9-page list of sites in categories such as culture, economy, human rights, and politics.

South Africa: Government: History
	There are 8 sections with brief histories of important periods such as the Colonization from Europe and the Apartheid State.

South Africa Page
	This list of sites on South Africa is modest in size. There are brief descriptions of some sites. South Africa Page is part of the larger African Studies WWW at the University of Pennsylvania.

South African Internet Resources
	A lengthy list of sites but without any descriptive information. Some of the organizations and general web sites on South Africa may lead to valuable historical information.

South African War Virtual Library

A good site with many interesting features; however, access may be confusing. Click on Contents. Click on the down arrow to open up a mini screen with a fine range of topics including Maps of Battles, Women and the War, Africans and the War, and Statistics of the War. Click on Charge! Resources appear relative to the topic you have chosen. Scroll down on the mini screen and other topics appear such as Links to Related Sites. Click on Charge! South African War Sites will appear. Click on Charge! to search that topic (see especially the British Public Records Office site) or on the arrow to open the screen. Highlight your new topic and again click Charge!