CDLI online sign lists
The Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (CDLI) sees as one of its major
goals the implementation of an online sign list for the early phases of
cuneiform, ca. 3300-2000 B.C. This represents a period of often rapid
development in both the graphic form, and the semantic or phonetic
referents of individual signs of the cuneiform repertory that has, due
to a number of reasons, not been well documented in the published
Assyriological literature. D. O. Edzard's article "Keilschrift" in
Reallexikon der Assyriololgie vol. 5 (1976-1980) pp. 544-568 presents
the currently most comprehensive overview of early cuneiform
development, and includes pp. 557-558 a list of published photographs of
4th and 3rd millennium cuneiform tablets recommended by the author in
any attempt to clarify graphic sign development of that period of
writing.
The internet distribution of tablet images far outstrips the
capabilities of paper publications in documenting the paleography of the
volatile phases of cuneiform. As a first step in this documentation and
at the same time as a freely available tool for work on the pages of
the CDLI and other tablet publication forums, we offer here copies of
the major sign list publications for the various historical phases of
early Babylonia as these are understood in the general Assyriological
literature. These will be replaced in time with electronically generated
lists linked to the full grapheme data sets of the CDLI, and from there
to glossaries and other interpretive compendia on the one hand, to the
specific sign attestations supported by the digital images of the
project on the other. These resources will represent the raw data for
further paleographic analyses of the sort conducted and published by D.
O. Edzard, M. Krebernik, P. Steinkeller, M. Civil and others (see the
literature cited in the bibliographical reference
Gelb Memorial Library of the CDLI).
The following is a list of the currently available relevant
publications, with those sign lists now online linked to their
respective URLs.
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