SISYPHOS (http://sisyphos.uni-hd.de) provides access to selected egyptological, ancient Near Eastern and archaeological websites, such as subject gateways, image databases, search engines, discussion forums, or mailing lists. The selected websites are checked for their scientific relevance and recorded following library standards.

SISYPHOS contains resources concerning Ancient Egypt dealing with all aspects of Pharaonic civilization (scripture, language, art, archaeology, history and religion), coptology and archaeology of Sudan are included.
Beyond that SISYPHOS contains resources concerning the material and written heritage of the Ancient Near East and other ancient cultures, e.g. the Indus valley civilization, the Scythians, ancient civilizations in Central Asia and of the Caucasus region.
In addition the subject matter covers all aspects tion techniques.

The websites are recorded following library bibliographic, objective, and systematic standards, and are provided with an abstract. The collection of art history websites is updated frequently by link checkers. Research in the database can be made using the basic "Search" or the "Advanced Search", in which detailed search parameter can be entered. Additional browsing entrances provide systematic access.  Each subject - Egyptology, Ancient Near East and Classical Archaeology -  can be searched separately, a parallel search is possible, too.

SISYPHOS is a service of Heidelberg University Library. It is a main part of "Propylaeum - The Virtual Library Classical Studies", a joint project of the Bavarian State Library (Special Subject Collections Early History, Classical Philology), the Internet portal KIRKE, the Chair for Latin Studies of the Humboldt University Berlin (Professor Dr. Ulrich Schmitzer), the German Archaeological Institute (DAI), the University Libraries of Heidelberg and Tuebingen. The whole poject is funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG).

Resource indexing follows national and international library standards. The bibliographic description makes use of the authorities entries of the so called "Personennamendatei" (Name Authority File, PND) and of the "Gemeinsame Körperschaftsdatei" (Corporate Body Authority File, GKD). The subject indexing uses the vocabulary of the "Schlagwortnormdatei" (Subject Heading Authority File, SWD), which is produced by the German National Library in Frankfurt/Main and its partner libraries. Additionally the resources are classified by Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC). The meta data follow the standards of Dublin Core (DC).

The controlled vocabularies allow to access the collection by topics or subjects. 

The Egyptological vocabulary is based on the scheme of the Annual Egyptological Bibliography. The vocabulary for the Ancient Near East resources was compiled by SISYPHOS itself and inspired by the Reallexikon der Assyriologie und Vorderasiatischen Archäologie (RlA), the Oxford Encyclopedia of Archaeology in the Near East (E.M. Meyers [Hrsg.]) and by the series Texte aus der Umwelt des Alten Testaments (TUAT). The Archaeological vocabulary is taken from the Thesaurus of the German Archaeological Institute (DAI).

SISYPHOS bases on the Clearinghouse-Software DBClear, which has been developed as a DFG funded project at the Informationszentrum für Sozialwissenschaften in Bonn. DBClear is a generic, platform-independent clearinghouse system. It includes a Z39.50 interface to integrate meta search and an automatic link checker to ensure the validity and quality of the collection.

The database aims at cooperative registration. All interested institutions and persons are invited to participate in the expansion of the collection. Please, use the suggestion form if you miss important websites or give us feedback.

(UB Heidelberg, 10 Jun 2009)