There are three ways to search in the catalog of artifacts of the CDLI: simple search, advanced search, and using the URL to select IDs search.
Simple search makes it possible to search in a number of domains:
You can select the domain with the dropdown to the right of the search field. Text entered in the search field is interpreted in the same way as in advanced search.
Multiple search queries can be combined by clicking on "Add search field". The new query can be in a different domain than the previous domain. With the small dropdown to the left of the search field, it is possible to control whether artifacts should match both queries ("and") or if all artifacts that match either query should be returned ("or"). In a query like "(1) and (2) or (3)", "and" takes precedence over "or", so the artifacts that are returned that either match (3), or both (1) and (2).
Advanced search allows for more detailed search queries. The form lists various different fields in which can be searched individually. It also allows some settings that affect transliteration searches. Individual searches are interpreted in one of four ways, as described below.
In advanced search, fields can contain multiple searches. To search for alternatives, combine values by placing %OR% between them. For example, Uruk %OR% Larsa searches for artifacts with a provenience of Uruk or Larsa. To combine two searches, place %AND% between them.
") it is interpreted as-is. This can also be used to search for searches containing commas./) it is interpreted as a RegExp pattern.? or *), the search is interpreted as a wildcard search. This means question marks can match any single character, and asterisks can match any number of characters.created and modified fields contain a date and a time, and can be searched with ranges.In all cases, searches are case-insensitive, meaning that uppercase searches can return lowercase results and vice versa.
Transliteration search behaves differently to account for the intricacies of the ATF file format.
ku does not return ku3.sz, s,, t,, and h to represent š, ṣ, ṭ and ḫ respectively, the latter can also be used in searches, as well as sh and c as alternatives for š and j for g.#, !, ?, *) are ignored when searching, unless they are explicitly searched for, meaning ku will also return ku#? but ku#? will not return just ku.") or use wildcard search.
There are also a number of options to further specify the behavior of transliteration search. These options can be set below the "Transliteration" field in advanced search.
A range search is composed of one or more comparisons, i.e. >, >=, <, and <= (respectively more than, more than or equal to, less than, and less then or equal to). These comparisons can be against number or date fields. For example, for artifacts created in May 2024, the following range could be constructed: >=2024-05-01 <2024-06-01. Alternatively, for artifacts with a P number between 1 and 100,000: >=1 <=100000. The following date and number formats are supported:
YYYY-MM-DDThh:mm:ss)YYYY-MM-DD, e.g. 2001-01-01). This is interpreted as midnight (00:00:00) on that day.#)#.###)2024-05-31 is interpreted as the very start of that day. This means that a query like >=2024-05-01 <=2024-05-31 would exclude any artifacts created on May 31st, except in that first second of 00:00:00. Similarly >2024-04-30 <2024-06-01 would include most artifacts created on April 30th.
In the URL bar of your browser, you can input a series of IDs to fetch multiple artifacts to view in search results. This will only work if all if your IDs are valid. Accepted IDs are:
After the backslash that follows the cdli domain, add each ID you require and separate them with a comma, using no spaces. For example: https://cdli.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/P123456,S000001,P000001. The artifacts will appear on the search result page.