Collegedale: Archaeology, foreign relations library grows

Students in archaeology and foreign relations at Southern Adventist University won’t have to dig deep to uncover treasures.

In the last year the private university in Collegedale has built an extensive collection of about 3,000 rare academic books and journals in archaeology and more than 320 books on American foreign relations, officials said.

The Christian-oriented university recently attained the private book and journal collections of archaeologists William Dever and Egyptologist Kent Weeks, said Michael Hasel, director of the institute of archaeology at Southern.

Dr. Dever, a former professor at the University of Arizona, is an archaeologist and specialist in the history of Israel and the Near East, Dr. Hasel said. The Dever collection was bought in March, he said.

Dr. Weeks is an Egyptologist best known for the 1995 discovery of the tomb of the sons of Ramses II, Dr. Hasel said.

“Both Dr. Weeks and Dr. Dever are very well known in the academic community,” he said.

Southern has worked to build its collection of books on Egypt and the Near East because it’s one of the few schools in the region with undergraduate programs in Near East archaeology and classical archaeology, Dr. Hasel said.

Besides Wheaton College in Wheaton, Ill., Southern is the only school to teach Near East archaeology from a Christian perspective, he said.

“We have a library and a program that is very unique for this field,” he said.

Southern also has gathered documents from Dr. Gary Hess, a history professor at Bowling Green State University, said Dr. Joe Mocnik, director of libraries at Southern.

Dr. Hess, an expert on U.S. foreign relations and former chairman of the State Department Advisory Committee on Historical Diplomatic Documentation, collected books and documents from the State Department through the Cold War years, Dr. Mocnik said.

“This institution did not have a collection like that,” he said.

Southern recently proposed building a curriculum in diplomatic history and foreign relations, and the Hess collection will be used by those students, he said.