Artefacts Citation???

[evaki]

Hello to all.
I am hoping that someone will be able to help me.

i am writing my dissertation on The evolvement of the Ritualistic Garment of the Fertile Crescent and I am referencing alot of findings. I am not an Archaeology or Anthropology student and I have noticed there are codes assigned on the findings.
Is there a global database for them codes or are they categorized by museum?
How should I cite them in an academic way?

Seems my professors have no idea - to their shame- so I am trying to find out myself.

any help would be greatly appreciated.

[us4-he2-gal2]

Hello Evaki:




Ritual Garments of the Fertile Crescent - Personally, I think that one sounds like a real can of worms as they say. Of course the difficult thing is that textiles absolutely don't survive over the centuries and so you're forced to work from what is there in the art: sculpture, relief and so forth. The problem then becomes interpreting what scenes depict a scene of real ritual significance, something that is somewhat subjective even in sophisticated circles.


The code systems you are referring to are likely either a) Museum codes or b) Primary publications. Both basically consist of an abbreviation like BM 1092 - this stands for British Museum, item number 1092. A primary publication code in a similar way refers to the book that first published a picture of the item and treated it. If you are dealing with a book which does not give one or the other for the item in question, you might as well throw that book in the trash - if the item can't be sourced to a museum or primary publication it can't be discussed basically.


For most of the items from Mesopotamian, the abbreviations for the relevant museums and publications can be found here:

cdli.ucla.edu/wiki/doku.php/abbreviations_for_assyriology



We do have a thread on enenuru on Sumerian fashion - but it was put together in a sort of half hearted way keep in mind without citations etc. Sill a good place to get alot of visual notions fast:

enenuru.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=research&action=display&thread=122



If you' d want some suggestions as to possibly useful books for this study, feel free to email me at the addy found on my profile Best regards.