About This Project
The Ohio State University’s Digital Lab for Ancient Textual Objects (DLATO) aims to support and grow the digital and cultural preservation of ancient textual objects and the accessibility to such sources for scholars, students, and the public through worldwide scholarly collaboration. DLATO is a vision and product of years of research and grant awards of its directors James D. Moore and Ahmad al-Jallad, professors of Near Eastern and South Asian Languages and Cultures (NESA).
Start up funding has been provided by The Ohio State University Arts and Humanities Large Grant Program. Site design by The Ohio State University’s ASC Tech development team.
DLATO Director
James D. Moore is a philologist and social historian of the ancient Near East and ancient Mediterranean. In addition to his OSU post, he is Chargé de Conférence at the École Pratique des Hautes Études (2023–2024), and a collaborator on the ERC project SLaVEgents: Enslaved persons in the making of societies and cultures in Western Eurasia and North Africa, 1000 BCE - 300 CE (2023–2028).
He publishes broadly in ancient Near Eastern studies, has edited hundreds of new Northwest Semitic documents (in Aramaic, Phoenician, and Hebrew), written on ancient Hebrew and Aramaic literatures, and publishes frequently on social history and scribal culture. He advocates for the incorporation of digital resources in the study of languages and culture.
He teaches Near Eastern Languages, Hebrew Bible, and ancient historical courses.
DLATO Co-Director
Ahmad Al-Jallad is a philologist, epigraphist, and historian of language. His work focuses on the languages, writing systems, history, and cultures of pre-Islamic Arabia and the ancient Near East.
His latest book reconstructs the religion and rituals of Arabia’s pre-Islamic tribespeople: “ The Religion and Rituals of the Nomads of Pre-Islamic Arabia A Reconstruction Based on the Safaitic Inscriptions ”, Brill 2022. For more of Al-Jallad’s work, see his Academia page.