From the initial planning for the ETANA site in 2000, discussions about what a subject portal should include cited a need to provide access to, preserve and archive archaeological data from excavations. While individual archaeologists and dig sites were posting data on the web, there was, and still is not, an agreed upon archival storage mechanism or site.
Abzu is a guide to networked open access data relevant to the study and public presentation of the Ancient Near East and the Ancient Mediterranean world.
The creator and editor of Abzu was Charles E. Jones, currently the Tombros Librarian for Classics and Humanities, The Pennsylvania State University Libraries.
ETANA is a multi-institutional collaborative project initiated in August 2000, as an electronic publishing project designed to enhance the study of the history and culture of the ancient Near East. Funded initially by a planning grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, then by a larger digitization grant from the same foundation, the ETANA web portal was launched in 2001. The founding institutions and associations that conceived and implemented this project were:
