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Editorial conventions (Fragmentarium)

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acheinrich edited this page Sep 28, 2020 · 10 revisions

Instructions for the use of the Fragmentarium

eBL

Transliteration Rules for the eBL project

The eBL project uses a simplified version of the A(scii)T(ransliteration)F(ormat). The ATF, used both by CDLI (in its ASCII version) and by Oracc (in its Unicode version), is the most popular format for the transliteration of cuneiform texts.

             A complete guide to Oracc ATF can be found here. The eBL-specific conventions are documented here.

  1. Avoid using accents. Use instead Unicode subindex numbers (Alt + Number)

  2. Do not use a breve under H or h: use H or h, not Ḫ or ḫ.

  3. For indented lines, use ($___$) (i.e., three underscores between dollar signs and parentheses) to Mark a blank space. Use in particular at the beginning of the line, avoid using it in the middle of the line.

  4. If fragments have been identified and an absolute numeration can be established on the basis of duplicates or joins, then give the absolute numerations in notes, but retain the relative numeration in the edition. Thus: 4'. [... ku]l-ba-ni-iš #note: 20 5'. [...] UZU-MEŠ-šu #note: 21

  5. Capitals should be used only when it is clear that a certain sign is a logogram. Otherwise, it may confuse the lemmatizer. For signs of uncertain reading, use non-caps.

  6. Avoid using slash for different readings of the same sign. ku/lu → OK, but ku/tuš → NO

  7. Columns: @column 1, @column 2, etc.

  8. Rulings: $ single ruling, $ double ruling, etc.

  9. IGI-MIN, GEŠTU-MIN, etc.

  10. $ traces

  11. If a line is the last of a tablet (in Lambert’s papers, “edge”), then add a line saying “$ (end of side)”, “$ (end of column)”, “$ (end of obverse)”, etc. E.g. K.18264

  12. If a line is the first of a tablet, do not use prime numbers

  13. Use short readings of mimated signs: tu₄ instead of tum, ti₃ instead of tim, lu₄ instead of lum, etc.

  14. Document-oriented glosses (“scribal comments on the document including 10-marks, line-count summaries and asides such as he-pi₂”) should be enclosed in {(…)}, e.g. {(he-pi₂)}.

  15. Use @colophon to mark the section containing the colophon (after the ruling). [Addition, 01.2020]

  16. Colophons should be added to the Colophon database (here, user name and password provided separately). [Addition, 05.2020]

  17. Tablets with interesting epigraphic features should be added to this list (here), so that they can be systematically tagged. [Addition 09.2020]

  18. In the case of intralinear bilinguals sumerian and akkadian should each be transliterated in a separate line. To differentiate add a and b to the line number, so. e.g. 4a. %sum [transliteration of the sumerian version]
    4b. ($___$) [transliteration of the akkadian version]

  19. If textcritical glosses don't repeat the antecedent in full the respective word needs to be supplied, e.g. er₂-ra : <(er₂)>-ta.

Instructions to transcribe from Lambert’s papers

  1. Make references to tablets explicit. So, when Lambert writes “18973”, transliterate “K.18973” (always K followed by a period, “K.”)

Joins

  1. Joining pieces should be edited in a single edition on the page of the fragment with the lowest museum number.

Lemmatization

  1.     Whenever possible, the lemmatization feature should be used (lemmatization tab). The lemmatization follows the Concise Dictionary of Akkadian.
  2.     The program automatically recognizes some of the lemmas, and these are shown red in the lemmatization tab. In the case of these lemmas, you just need to check if the proposed lemma is correct. After revising them, press Save to consolidate them.
  3.     The lemmas without colour need to be entered manually. Click on the lemma, and either choose from the proposed lemmas or type in the lemma (no special characters needed) in order to find it. If needed, consult the dictionary feature (= CDA) to differentiate between ambiguous lemmas.
  4.     The lemmatization dialogue is insensitive to special characters: s = s, ṣ, š; a = a, ā, â.
  5.     Statives should be lemmatized under the infinitive (par-sat → parāsu I)
  6.     Most participles have independent entries (so pa-ri-su → pārisu). If they don’t, lemmatize them under the infinitive (ta-bi-ku → tabāku, since there is no tābiku).

References

  1.     Most of the items in Fragmentarium have “uncurated references” that can be found by clicking the button on the left side of the page under the heading “References”.
  2.     The uncurated references have been generated by conducting an automatic search in a collection of PDF-files, and the hits with the tablet number are shown here. Note: the page numbers given in the uncurated references are the page numbers of the PDF-file, not the actual publication!
  3.     In order to turn uncurated references into proper references, you need to check if the reference is correct or not, and then enter the information in the reference tab. Some of the uncurated references are incorrect (e.g. because of OCR mistake of the number 8 for 0, or because of an error in the publication). Because the PDF-collection can have duplicate files of the same publication, there may be more than one uncurated references that result in a single proper reference.
  4.     In the reference tab, a reference can be entered by typing the name of the author in the “Name Year Title” field and then choosing the publication in question from the list.
  5.     In the case of references in CAD, choose “Oppenheim 1956–2011” and enter the letter of the volume in the pages field (e.g. B, 89).
  6.     Indicate the type of publication in the drop-down list (Edition/Discussion/Copy/Photo).
  7.     If a publication cites particular lines, they should be indicated in the field “Lines Cited”.
  8.     The bibliography database is growing and does not necessarily contain the information of the relevant publication. In this case, a new entry needs to be generated in the Bibliography section of the website (link at the top of the page next to Fragmentarium). The simplest way to do this is to find a similar publication by the same author in the bibliography and then to copy the information that can be accessed by clicking the edit icon on the left side of the entry. The copied information should then be pasted into a new bibliography entry that you can create by clicking the “Create” button on the right side of the page in the bibliography section. Then adjust the information (change the title, year, page numbers etc.), and remember to change the ID of the entry. The easiest way to do this is to add characters to the existing ID (e.g. change from RN862 into RN862nn).

Genres

  1.     Genres are divided into four major groups: Archival, Canonical, Monumental, and Other. In the groups there are up to three levels of categorisation, e.g. CANONICAL > Literature > Monologue and Dialogue > Fables.
  2.     To add a genre classification to a tablet simply select the appropriate option from the drop-down menu under "Genres".
  3.     It is possible to add several genre classifications to one tablet.
  4.     If only the genre group that a text belongs to is known, just select one of the four groups from the drop-down menu.
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