Welcome to the Digital Semitics Online Library (DSOL)! This site is designed as a personal online archive and repository of information related to ancient Near Eastern (ANE) studies. I compile here a collection of external links of texts, talks, and videos that interest me as well as feature my own work. Of course, some external links will eventually expire, making this website simultaneously a “living” and (partially) “dead” archive of the present as well as the past.
Who am I? My name is Matthew Saunders, and I am a PhD student in Near Eastern Studies with a concentration on the languages and texts in the region of the Levant (modern-day Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel, and Palestinian territories). My secondary region of speciality of ancient Mesopotamia (the area around the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in modern-day Iraq, Syria, and southeastern Turkey). Within the broad field of NES, my research interests include Comparative Semitics, Aramaic Studies, Ugaritic Studies, Northwest Semitic epigraphy, Akkadian dialectology (especially Western Peripheral Akkadian), as well as ancient religion, science, magic, myth, and ritual. I’m also interested in the digital humanities, especially computational applications in ANE studies and the history of its scholarship (what I call “historical academia”). For this reason, much of the information on this site revolves around these subjects.
On the DSOL site, you can find pages related to ANE studies, a Catalogue of Semitic Inscriptions (CSI), and miscellaneous information about me and my lifestyle. Naturally, this website is a perpetual work in progress, so I encourage you to check back often for updates to the Library. Whether its any of the linked materials or my own blog about miscellaneous topics, I hope you find this website to be a helpful resource for connecting with the academic study of the ancient Near East and especially Semitic studies online.
