LINKING THE INSCRIPTIONS OF ANCIENT MESOPOTAMIA

T ERHI N URMIKKO
tmtn1g10@soton.ac.uk / @ tmtn ARCHAEOLOGICAL COMPUTING RES EARCH GROUP DIGITAL HUMANITIES RES EARCH GROUP WEB S CIENCE DOCTORAL TRAINING CENTRE ACADEMIC S UPERVIS ORS : DR GRAEME EARL (ACRG), DR NICK GIBBINS (WAIS ) AND DR JACOB DAHL (OXF ORD)
I m a g e c o u r t e s y o f M e l b o u r n e M u s e u m e x h i b i t i o n T h e W o n d e r s o f a n c i e n t M e s o p o t a m i a M a y 4 th O c t o b e r 7 th 2 0 1 2

CUNEIFORM AND THE HETEROGENEOUS TEXT CORPORA OF THE ANCIENT NEAR EAST
The vast textual corpora of ancient Mesopotamia is written almost exclusively in cuneiform, an ancient syllabic script that was widely used across the ancient Near East. Evidence from as far back as fourth millennium BC makes cuneiform one of the earliest forms of written expression in the world. It remained in use for several millennia, and served as the lingua franca of the region.
Genres range from simple receipts to law codes, from love poems to mathematics, hymns to jokes and everything in between. Cuneiform has thousands of polyvalent signs correct readings are highly context-dependent, further complicated by the lack of punctuation and the similar appearance of heterosemantic signs, such as for to go, for place and ( a grammatical element).

DIGITAL RESOURCES, ELECTRONIC DICTIONARIES AND CITIZEN SCIENCE FOR TRANSCRIPTION

Philological research in Assyriology has been characterized with limited access to resources and the lengthy processes of data-collection. The last decade has seen the development of a number of online resources, ranging from object records to dictionaries (electronic Pennsylvania Sumerian Dictionary), several sign lists, Unicode representations and publications of composite texts (Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature) .
Whilst mutually complementary, there is little in terms of interlinking, and the only the most tentative of initial steps have been taken thus far in terms of utilising Linked Open Data (LOD). In 2012, the Open Richly Annotated Cuneiform Corpus (Oracc) joined Pelagios, which makes geographical locations the first type of Assyriological data to be published as LOD. The ultimate aim of this on-going project is to implement a system which links outwards to the Pleiades gazetteer and internally to all of the Oracc sub-projects. Whilst hundreds of archaeological sites are known, some, such as the capital of the Akkadian empire, Akkad, has yet to be located on the ground, although well-attested in great numbers of ancient written documents. Although traditionally a somewhat niche community of research, projects are

increasingly reaching out to the public. UrCrowdsource was launched as part of the Ur Digitization Project, and is a citizen science project to transcribe the excavation records from Sir Leonard Woolleys

excavations at Ur in Iraq (1922 1934). All the materials from these excavations are divided between the Iraq National Museum, University of Pennsylvania and the British Instances of reuse and repetition of narrative passages in various compositions (such as proverbs quoted in epic literature) and repeated over time (the Sargon Birth Legend, repeated as the Biblical story of Moses in Exodus) are a well-known feature of the Mesopotamian literary tradition. Identifying such cross-references is extremely timeconsuming and currently requires extensive specialised knowledge of a number of different dialects, languages and literary traditions. Recognisably similar compositions are known from the Akkadian (Old Babylonian) and Assyrian traditions but with notable changes in the perspective or moral of the story. The best known is the Poem of the Righteous Sufferer, which bears noted similarity to the Biblical story of Job.
4-13"Our 1-3There

Museum, but efforts are being made to bring them together digitally. The question arises: Could citizen science be used for cuneiform materials as well?

were three friends, citizens of Adab, who fell into a dispute with each other, and sought justice. They deliberated the matter with many words, and went before the king. king! We are ox-drivers. The ox belongs to one man, the cow belongs to one man, and the waggon belongs to one man. We became thirsty and had no water. We said to the owner of the ox, "If you were to fetch some water, then we could drink!". And he said, "What if my ox is devoured by a lion? I will not leave my ox!". We said to the owner of the cow, "If you were to fetch some water, then we could drink!". And he said, "What if my cow went off into the desert? I will not leave my cow!". We said to the owner of the waggon, "If you were to fetch some water, then we could drink!". And he said, "What if the load were removed from my waggon? I will not leave my waggon!". "Come on, let's all go! Come on, and let's return together!"
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Assyriology will benefit from linking knowledge in existing

Event

resources within the domain, as well branching out to datasets beyond the niche to other disciplines. The LOD community on the other hand will benefit from the discoveries attained from the representation of
Expression

Transformation

Introduction

ONTOLOGICAL REPRESENTATION OF A SUMERIAN NARRATIVE

heterogeneous and incomplete narratives which do not describe events from an omniscient perspective. Representation of the structure of the passage via a narrative ontology such as OntoMedia may aid in the identification of existing parallels within the entirety of the Mesopotamian literary corpora, as well as other written traditions, such as those of ancient Anatolia, Levant and Egypt. The CIDOC CRM will enable mapping of Assyriological material to other cultural

the ox, although tied with a leash (?), mounted the cow, and then she dropped her young, and the calf started to chew up (?) the waggon's load. Who does this calf belong to? Who can take the calf?
16-17The

Entity

king did not give them an answer, but went to visit a cloistered lady. The king sought advice from the cloistered lady:
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Abstract-item

heritage projects, meaning that archaeological, museological

Item

and not just philological data in accessible, enriched and open. The case study example is a Sumerian fictional or humorous narrative called the Three Ox-Drivers of Adab. It is the story of three friends who fall into dispute over the ownership of a calf. Sadly, although several tablets which carry the inscription are known, all are broken or incomplete and the punch-line of this fable still eludes us.

Being-Trait

Male

young men came before me and said: 'Our king, we are oxdrivers. The ox belongs to one man, the cow belongs to one man, and the waggon belongs to one man. We became thirsty and had no water. We said to the owner of the ox, "If you were to draw some water, then we could drink!". And he said, "What if my ox is devoured by a lion? I will not leave my ox!". We said to the owner of the cow, "If you were to draw some water, then we could drink!". And he said, "What if my cow went off into the desert? I will not leave my cow!". We said to the owner of the waggon, "If you were to draw some water, then we could drink!". And he said, "What if the load were removed from my waggon? I will not leave my waggon!" he said. "Come on, let's all go! Come on, and let's return together!" '
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Timeline

Female

'First the ox, although tied with a leash (?), mounted the cow, and then she dropped her young, and the calf started to chew up (?) the waggon's load. Who does this calf belong to? Who can take the calf?"

The Digital Economy Programme is a Research Councils UK cross-council initiative led by EPSRC and contributed to by AHRC, ESRC and MRC.