Munich (dpa / lby) - Munich scientists are working on the digitization of clay tablets with cuneiform writing from ancient Mesopotamia. The aim of the "Electronic Babylonian Literature" project at Ludwigs-Maximilian University is to digitize all surviving cuneiform tablets from Babylonia, the university announced on Wednesday.
Many panels are only available in the form of countless fragments. In order to connect these parts, the team has developed an algorithm, explained the ancient orientalist Enrique Jiménez, who is driving the project with his team. "It is a tool that has never existed before, a vast database of fragments. We believe it is essential to the reconstruction of Babylonian literature, which we can now progress much faster." The algorithm has already re-identified hundreds of manuscripts and many textual connections.
The database should be accessible from Friday. As part of a specialist conference, Jiménez wants to publish the AI database and a digital edition containing all known copies of cuneiform fragments. With more than 300,000 lines of text, most of them previously unpublished, it is the largest text publication in the history of cuneiform studies.
