The project has created a bibliographic dataset of references to Greek myths and classical texts in modern Arabic written works and periodicals. The collection is maintained and continuously expanded on Zotero at the link: https://www.zotero.org/groups/6317463/database_digimyth/library.

At the present stage, the dataset contains a bibliography of 541 entries of references to Greek myths and classical texts in modern Arabic written works and periodicals produced in the period 1867-1950 predominantly in Egypt and the Levant. The selection has been limited to Arabic sources that display a reference to Greek myths and Greek literary texts, with little interest in other domains of ancient Greek knowledge, such as sciences, philosophy, and history.

The corpus includes bibliographic entries drawn from published and unpublished works, manuscripts, an encyclopaedia, and the following 23 periodicals:

al-Adīb, al-ʿArūs, al-Aṯār, al-Balāġ al-usbūʿī, al-Ḍiyāʾ, al-Funūn, al-Ǧāliyah, al-Ǧāmiʿah/al-Ǧāmiʿah al-ʿuṯmāniyyah, al-Ǧinān, al-Ḥadīṯ, al-Hilāl, al-Kanānah, al-Maǧallah al-ǧadīdah, al-Maǧallah al-miṣriyyah, Maǧallatī, al-Manār [Ḥaddād], al-Manār [Riḍā], al-Mawrid al-Ṣāfī, al-Muʿallim al-ǧadīd, al-Muqtaṭaf, al-Naǧāḥ, Rawḍat al-Madāris, al-Risālah.

The sources have been collected at the Nami Jafet Memorial Library of the American University of Beirut, at the library of the Istituto per l’Oriente “C.A. Nallino” in Rome, and in the following freely accessible online platforms: https://digitale-sammlungen.ulb.uni-bonn.de/topic/view/3080606; https://zaidanfoundation.org/al-hilal-issues-1892-2007/; https://archive.alsharekh.org/; https://eap.bl.uk/. 

Each record provides standardised metadata, including @item type (book or article), title, creator(s), journal name, volume, issue, pages, date, place, and publisher. The notes display the original title in Arabic and occasionally further information on the entry. The tags include references to the literary genre, the topics, and the myths mentioned in the entry.

The dataset is intended to support research on the cultural transmission, reception, and circulation of Greek myths and classics in the Arabic intellectual and literary tradition.

Note on Scope: The selection of sources included in this dataset should not be regarded as exhaustive. The expansion of the dataset is ongoing, and additional periodicals and publications from the relevant timeframe will be incorporated in future updates.

The dataset is deposited on Zenodo: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17763872.

The research version deposited on Zenodo provides a stable, citable snapshot of the collection, exported in BibTeX format. This ensures long-term accessibility, reproducibility, and compliance with the FAIR principles as required by Horizon Europe / MSCA.

The snapshot reflects the state of the Zotero collection on the upload date and is updated periodically. Every update deposited on Zenodo receives its own Version-specific DOI, while the entire dataset series shares a persistent Concept DOI.

Standard citation

Arturo Monaco (2025). Bibliographic Dataset of Greek Myths and Classics in Arabic Sources – DIGIMYTH (version v1.0). Zenodo. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.17763872.