ARED: Computerizaton of the Ebla texts

The main objective of the project is the creation of a computerized archive, freely accessible in the Internet through a server at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, containing information about the Royal Archives of Ebla, which were discovered by an Italian archeological mission during the seventies. These archives contain several thousands documents written in cuneiform script, in a mixture of Sumerian and Eblaite, a little-known semitic language. The computerization, processing and distribution of cuneiform documents requires the development of specific multimedia instruments and a data-base capable of containing all the relevant information, and generating associated documents with supplementary information. This project aims to the design and construction of an appropriate tool, with the ability to systematize the classification and the access to information non strictly textual, which will also allow the specialized professionals to add information and distribute it automatically among those researchers who have signaled their interest. The project will establish a corpus of specific terminology that may be used to systematically describe the questions discussed in the documents provided by the users of the tool, which may become the base for a general methodology applicable to other branches of History.


Fund: UAM during 1998

Project members: