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HART 2210 - Art & Architecture of Ancient Egypt - Lee: Finding Books in Library Catalog

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Vanderbilt University Library Catalog

Selecting the best search scope for your research needs:

Library Catalog vs. VU Collections vs. Articles

Search Scope What is included? When should I use it?
Library Catalog
  • Broadest search scope
  • Results will include books and ebooks, articles, and media like DVDs
  • A great option when you are just beginning your research process.
  • Use Library Catalog when you want to survey the research landscape for your topic
VU Collections
  • Focuses on VU owned items, physical and digital
  • Results will include books and ebooks, and media like DVDs
  • Digital collections like the TV News Archive will also be included in your results
  • You have defined your information needs
  • Use VU Collections when you are ready to create a tailored search for your topic
Articles
  • Content from selected VU databases
  • Popular and scholarly articles
  • Use Articles to find popular and scholarly articles on your topic.
  • The Articles scope does not search across all databases accessible to the Vanderbilt community.
  • Not finding the articles you need or want more database options?

For a more detailed explanation of your search scope options consult What am I searching?

 

Try a SUBJECT using one of the Library of Congress Subject Headings listed below:

Art, Egyptian Architecture, Egyptian
Temples Egypt Mural painting and decoration, Egyptian
Sculpture, Egyptian Egyptian language
Egypt Antiquities  Valley of the Kings (Egypt)
Pyramids Thebes (Egypt : Extinct city)
Rosetta Stone Inscriptions, Egyptian

Transliterations of Egyptian Names & Words

Hieroglyphic writing combines ideograms (signs that represent ideas and things) and phonograms (signs that represent sounds). To add more fun to the mix, no vowels were used in hieroglyphic writing so unrelated words commonly shared a spelling. Egyptian scribes added what scholars call determinatives, which are ideograms used to determine or make clear the meaning of a word.

All of this makes the task of translating hieroglyphic pictures into sounds, called transliterating, a real challenge,  This is why you'll often find variant spellings for Egyptian names and words.

What does this mean for you as a searcher?

Be aware that using all the variant spellings of a word or name will retrieve a greater number of results than if you focus on one spelling variant.

 

Just look at the variants for Akhenaton:  Akhnaton, Echnaton & Ikhnaton

 

Spelling Counts!

Books from the Catalog!