Abstract
We present an index providing estimates of the number of cuneiform inscriptions derived from individual archaeological locations, along with bibliographical references for these estimates. Archaeological finds of cuneiform inscriptions are known from across Europe, Asia, and Africa, with the present index including an aggregate 430,000 inscriptions distributed across 600 locations. This index can be used on its own as a bibliographical reference for finds or as a source of basic statistics. Combined with existing geospatial data, the index can generate quantitative and geographical overviews of corpus distribution.
Introduction
Fig. 1: Dot distribution map of the number of cuneiform inscriptions from all periods by archaeological location (quantitative data from Smidt et al. 2023; coordinates from Rattenborg et al., 2021a). Map by Rune Rattenborg.
CIGS-AE, shorthand for Cuneiform Inscriptions Geographical Site – Assemblage Estimates, provides a first comprehensive quantitative overview of the estimated number of cuneiform inscriptions unearthed from archaeological locations. This resource was prepared by Gustav Ryberg Smidt with the assistance of additional staff of the research project Geomapping Landscapes of Writing (GLoW) of Uppsala University. The initial index was intended as a reference tool for the quantitative presentation and visualisation of cuneiform corpora.
Counting more than half a million inscribed artifacts and fragments scattered across a vast stretch of the Eurasian landmass, from Rome in the west to the Himalayas in the east, the cuneiform corpus ranks among the largest bodies of writing from the ancient world. The full geographical extent and scale of this body of writing is, therefore, hard to properly convey to researchers and general audiences alike. The CIGS-AE index gathers and standardises estimates of the number of inscriptions retrieved from discrete archaeological locations, since the overwhelming majority of cuneiform inscriptions derive from archaeological contexts, unearthed both through illicit digging and scientific excavations.
The index excludes counts for artifacts for which an archaeological origin can neither be established nor meaningfully conjectured, and so does not provide a quantitative overview of the entire cuneiform corpus (estimated at ca. 530,000 artifacts, see Streck, 2010). Cuneiform inscriptions without an affirmed or conjectured archaeological provenience currently amount to between fifteen and twenty per cent of the overall corpus, according to the catalogue of the Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. CIGS-AE then offers a rough lower threshold for the size of the full cuneiform corpus and a fairly reliable overview of its general geographical distribution. The accompanying bibliography, including some 450 titles, offers a basic set of references for all known archaeological sites with finds of cuneiform inscriptions. This information is intended as a starting point for further study, and should not be considered an exhaustive nor authoritative bibliography.
Definitions and method
The index takes as its entity the number of inscribed artefacts deriving from any one archaeological location. Assemblage estimates were compiled on the basis of estimated totals from the scholarly literature rather than catalogued artefacts. Estimates will then only consider the number of artefacts reported excavated (scientifically or clandestinely) at a given site, disregarding whether the inscriptions have been catalogued or not. Where multiple and significantly diverging estimates are available from the secondary literature, we have, to the extent possible, sought to evaluate individual estimates in light of the pertinent research history and the empirical basis of the figures suggested. To maintain formal data collection consistency, we have generally sought to give preference to figures provided in peer-reviewed print publications where these did not significantly disagree with numbers available from dynamic digital resources (for a more extensive discussion of this approach, see Rattenborg et al., 2023). Data for individual records were compiled according to the following steps:
- Review of primary and most recent publications on unearthing of cuneiform inscriptions at a given location to provide an overview of research and publication history. Depending on the scale of cuneiform finds at a given location, estimates given in the index have been compiled by either of the following two approaches:
- For smaller assemblages, by counting the number of inscriptions mentioned in individual publications
- For larger assemblages, by aggregating estimates provided by relevant specialist surveys of inscriptions from a given location (e.g. Pedersén, 1998), including figures from all periods.
- Where relevant publications provided no information on the number of inscriptions found at a given location, major digital catalogues within the field, chiefly the Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative, the Database of Neo-Sumerian Texts, and various projects of the Open Richly Annotated Cuneiform Corpus, have been consulted to generate a minimum number.
All records added to the index are based on reviews of the available archaeological and epigraphical literature for the individual archaeological site by one or more project staff. All estimates have been checked against counts from major online research databases to clarify and resolve major discrepancies. Where applicable, overall estimates total has been evaluated against numbers given in Streck, 2010. The accompanying bibliography has been reviewed and checked in full subsequent to data collection and will be updated with the release of new versions of the index.
Dataset description
Current and future versions of CIGS-AE are available from the European Union OpenAIRE repository Zenodo maintained by CERN. Files are released under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0), allowing users to freely distribute and build upon the dataset, for non-commercial as well as commercial use, as long as proper attribution is given. The current version (v. 1.1) includes three separate files:
- A tabular text file containing assemblage estimates, as well as identifiers for archaeoloical locations and bibliographic references (Table 1)
- A bibliography of sources for the data supplied in the tabular index in .bibtex-format, compatible with most reference management software applications
- A .pdf-file providing a dot distribution map of numbers contained in the tabular index, using geocoordinates from the Cuneiform Inscriptions Geographical Site (CIGS) index (Fig. 1)
| field | type | description |
| site_id | string |
Primary identifier, corresponding to record identifiers in Cuneiform Inscriptions Geographical Site (CIGS) (Rattenborg, Johansson, Nett, Smidt, and Andersson (2021a) index, discussed in Rattenborg et al. (2021b). |
| est | integer |
Estimate of overall number of inscriptions reported from the site in question. |
| est_ref | string |
Short title of references for estimate. Multiple values are separated by a semicolon (;). Short titles correspond to short titles given in the .bibtex-file. |
| est_size | integer |
Number assigning estimate to one of six ordinal groups presented in Rattenborg et al. (2023), Table 2. |
| notes | string |
Additional notes to estimate given. |
Occasional release of future versions of the index will appear at the discretion of the authors. Current and past versions of the CIGS-AE can be inspected on Zenodo using the stable DOI 10.5281/zenodo.8379793 for the entire dataset.
Reuse potential
The index is intended as a basic reference tool and holds considerable potential for further augmentation and refinement. In addition to the bibliography, the index can be used for basic statistical and geospatial visualisations of inscription distribution applicable to a wide range of use cases, including in teaching, cultural heritage management, and research. Primary identifiers of the present index are identical to those of the Cuneiform Inscriptions Geographical Site (CIGS) (Rattenborg et al., 2021) index, meaning that quantitative data and references from the present resource can be analysed in geospatial data applications and alongside spatially referenced archaeological data sets. Identifiers from CIGS and CIGS-AE are moreover matched to stable archaeological provenience identifiers of the Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative, meaning that estimates given in the present data set can be compared to catalogue counts of the CDLI using data downloads or API of this service.
Acknowledgements
This data set was prepared as part of Geomapping Landscapes of Writing (GLoW), a research project of the Uppsala University Department of Linguistics and Philology. The project was funded for 2020-2023 by the Mixed Methods programme of Riksbankens Jubileumsfond, grant no. MXM19-1160:1. The authors would like to acknowledge the input and assistance of colleagues at Uppsala University Department of Linguistics and Philology, especially Jakob Andersson and Olof Pedersén, as well as staff at the Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative, namely Émilie Pagé-Perron and Jacob L. Dahl.
References
- Pedersén, Olof. 1998. Archives and Libraries in the Ancient Near East, 1500-300 B.C. Bethesda, Md: CDL Press.
- Rattenborg, Rune, Carolin Johansson, Seraina Nett, Gustav Ryberg Smidt, and Jakob Andersson. 2021a. “Cuneiform Inscriptions Geographical Site Index (CIGS).” Zenodo. 2021. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4960710.
- Rattenborg, Rune, Carolin Johansson, Seraina Nett, Gustav Ryberg Smidt, and Jakob Andersson. 2021b. “An Open Access Index for the Geographical Distribution of the Cuneiform Corpus.” Cuneiform Digital Library Journal2021 (1): 1–12. https://cdli.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/articles/cdlj/2021-1.
- Rattenborg, Rune, Gustav Ryberg Smidt, Carolin Johansson, Nils Melin-Kronsell, and Seraina Nett. 2023. “The Archaeological Distribution of the Cuneiform Corpus.” Altorientalische Forschungen 50 (2): 178–205. https://doi.org/10.1515/aofo-2023-0014.
- Streck, Michael P. 2010. “Großes Fach Altorientalistik: Der Umfang Des Keilschriftlichen Textkorpus.” Mitteilungen Der Deutschen Orient-Gesellschaft Zu Berlin 142: 35–58.
- Smidt, Gustav Ryberg, Carolin Johansson, Nils Melin-Kronsell, Seraina Nett, and Rune Rattenborg. 2023. “Cuneiform Inscriptions Geographical Site – Assemblage Estimates (CIGS-AE).” Zenodo. 2023. https://doi.org/ 10.5281/zenodo.8379793.