The UCLA-sponsored Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative is creating a unified web access to the historical records of the ancient Near East. Using computing technology to facilitate digital preservation and research, the project is fostering an unusually productive scholarly cooperation between academic and cultural institutions. At the same time, “lines of communication” to pre-scientific civilizations, dead many thousands of years, will be opened to a networked public. As a result, we believe that web users, in particular young learners across the globe, will achieve a deeper appreciation of their own cultural roots. You can help preserve the heritage of the cradle of civilization, stretching from ancient Israel and Syria across Anatolia to Assyria, Babylonian and Persia, by contributing to the CDLI. Your tax deductible donation will support our ongoing capture, processing, and free dissemination of cuneiform tablet collections found worldwide; it will assist us in sponsoring three online, open access journals dedicated to cuneiform studies; and it will ensure that these invaluable historical resources remain permanently accessible to future generations. Thank you. Professor Robert K. Englund, Director