Everyone has cleaned out their pockets, found old receipts, and tossed them away. They never really think about what that receipt for a loaf of bread, a couple of tomatoes, and a gallon of orange juice tells about them and their society.

A chart depicting the evolution of the modern alphabet. Dr. Suder's archive has helped countless linguists and scholars determine how this evolution took place through inscriptions on pottery, stones and other artifacts.

But for archaeologists studying ancient civilizations, things as seemingly insignificant as receipts, letters, and even graffiti provide a window on how people lived long ago. And when researchers studying in Israel and the Middle East need to know the significance of what they’ve found, they consult Dr. Robert Suder, professor of philosophy and religion at Berea, who developed and maintains the Northwest Semitic Inscriptions Archive (NSIA.) This spring, the Appalachian College Association (ACA) recognized the significance of Suder’s work with a Faculty-Student Research grant of $18,700 to further develop the NSIA.

Dr. Robert Suder

Northwest Semitic is a language comprised of a 22 letter alphabet, which was used in ancient Israel. Through photographs, drawings, and translations, Suder’s Archive allows researchers to compare Northwest Semitic inscriptions carved on seals, stamps, pottery, or other surfaces to the over 2,000 inscriptions already in the database. By comparing new finds to similar inscriptions in the database, archaeologists can establish dates, trace cultural and religious move-ments, and follow the evolution of language-- all from a few shards of clay.

" The inscriptions show the ancient world was much larger than we thought," comments Suder. "Finding there were Egyptians in Jerusalem is just one example of how people traveled all over the area to trade or settle, and the pieces we analyze help to trace their movements."

Some of the most useful finds are personal or family seals, which were used as an ancient signature. Seals are made of precious or semi-precious stones, intricately carved with pictures and stories, and often inscribed with the name of the owner and information about him. When archaeologists find bullae (the clay stamp that a seal makes), or ostraca (pottery with writing on it), they can follow advances in the alphabet as well as different writing instruments, and use all this information to place ancient civilizations.

Decoding and interpreting Semitic inscriptions wasn’t always so convenient. When Suder was in graduate school at the University of Wisconsin-Madison working on his Ph.D. in Near Eastern studies, he found that inscriptions formed a continually expanding view of ancient peoples and culture. From 1979-89 he spent ten years in the Middle East as a map maker and surveyor on archaeological excavations.

"Archaeologists were always finding new things, and it was very difficult to keep up with new information coming out," Suder says. "Books couldn’t be published fast enough. In 1985, I
published a monograph on inscriptions. In five years, it was obsolete!"

In the early 1990’s, he began working on a bibliography for the philosophy and religion department at Berea. As he saw the capabilities of the computer emerge, he began to think this was the perfect medium for organizing mass quantities of inscription information.

In 1994, he took a sabbatical year to computerize his "obsolete" monograph, and the Northwest Semitic Inscriptions Archive was born. It now contains over 2,000 inscriptions and 30,000 bibliographic entries about particular inscriptions, and is the only place on or off the web to find a comprehensive listing of this information.

Berea students have assisted with the project since the beginning. Since 1995, maintaining and adding to the database has been a faculty-student research project each summer, often funded by the Appalachian College Association. "It’s a great project because students not only learn about language and history, but gain valuable computer experience as well," Suder says. Levi Whitaker ’01 and Samuel Weddington ’01 worked with him last summer, updating entries and adding new pieces to the collection. Whitaker plans to continue language studies in graduate school.

The database is "definitely a service learning project," according to Suder, who finds his greatest satisfaction in providing a service to his colleagues around the world. He has worked extensively with the library at Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati. Professor P. Kyle McCarter Jr., the William Foxwell Albright Chair in Biblical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies at Johns Hopkins University, and one of the of ancient writings, uses the database in his classes.

During 2001-02, Suder will take a sabbatical leave to add more artifacts, do significant editing, and develop a concordance for the Archive. When he’s finished, researchers will be able to compare any item they find with all other items in the database which share the same traits.

Two other Berea faculty members also received ACA grants this spring. Dr. Stephanie Browner, associate professor of English and theatre, received a grant for $14,300 to develop a digital archive for the Charles W. Chesnutt collection. Dr. Gordon McKinney, director of the Berea College Appalachian Center and professor of history, was awarded $30,000 to analyze the applications for amnesty after the Civil War from persons in western North Carolina.

The ACA, a consortium of 33 private colleges, provides faculty at member colleges access to a wide range of grant-related assistance. Major funding comes from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

You can find the NSIA at http://suder.berea.edu