HOW TO USE

1. CONVENTIONS

2. SIMPLE QUERY

3. ADVANCED QUERY

4. EXPORT

5. OPEN SCIENCE

1. CONVENTIONS

• Special charachters for Sumerian:
  • š = sz
  • ĝ / ŋ = j
  • ḫ = h

• Transliteration: Sumerian is translitterated according to Attinger’s readings (P. Attinger, Glossaire sumérien-français, Wiesbaden 2020,2021). However, the application recognises also the ‘long’ transliteration (ePSD, ETCSL), i.e., it is possible to search for ša₃ or šag.

2. SIMPLE QUERY

• Simple query: To start a simple query, just type a term in a free text field. This can be a Sumerian word or sign in the field ‘Epithet’ or an English word in the field ‘Translation’. The application considers Sumerian signs separated by hyphen as a single element. While typing a term in a field, the application produces a suggestion list with matching results. You can also choose a value from the suggestion list.
  By default, the application returns all records containing the term searched in the selected field.

• Result list: By default, the results are returned in a table with four columns displaying the following fields: Epithet, Deity, Text, Line.
  You can rearrange the order of the records by clicking on the name of the field of your choice. It is also possible to sort the records in descending or ascending alphabetical order. You can change the displayed fields: by clicking on the ⊖ at the top of the column you delete the column. By clicking on the ⊕ at the upper right corner of the table a drop-down menu appears, and you can choose new columns to display. The maximum number of columns is set to five.

  Clicking on a result opens the whole record.

  Divine names in the field ‘Deity’ are hyperlinked to the Ancient Mesopotamian Gods and Goddesses Project.

  Sumerian words in the field ‘Form in context’ are hyperlinked to the electronic Pennsylvania Sumerian Dictionary (ePSD2).

  Titles of compositions in the field ‘Text’ are hyperlinked to the Corpus of the electronic Pennsylvania Sumerian Dictionary.

3. ADVANCED QUERY

Premise: You can restrict the results of a query by adding more conditions and starting a new search. You can add a new condition in the same field or in another one. The choosen conditions are displayed between the search form and the results. You can delete a condition by clicking on it.

By default, conditions from the same field (inner field) are combined with the OR operator, i.e., at least one condition must be true (searching for ‘X’ and then for ‘Y’ in the same field returns records containing X or Y in that field). Conditions from different fields (outer fields) are combined with the AND operator, i.e., all conditions must be true (searching for ‘X’ in field 1 and ‘Y’ in field 2 returns only records matching both criteria). The operator can be changed using the drop down menu above the "search" button.

• Searching for 2 terms in one field: Searching for more than one terms, e.g., two Sumerian signs/words or two English words, returns all records containing the searched terms in the selected field, even if they are separated by other terms. However, the order of the terms is relevant. This query returns only records matching the same order of the terms (searching for ‘X Y’ does not return ‘Y X’).
  If you want all records containing ‘X and Y’ as well as ‘Y and X’, you must search first for ‘X Y’ and then add a new criterion searching for ‘Y X’. By default, the ‘Search method for inner field’ (below the search form) is set on ‘OR’. The OR operator filters records based on more than one condition, where at least one condition is true.

• Query with more conditions: You can start a query selecting values in all fields. Remember that by default, Conditions from different fields are combined with the AND operator (all conditions must be true).

• Preset query: When you move the pointer over a field of a record, a magnifying glass appears. By clicking on the field, you start a preset query which will return all records with the value of the selected field AND the deity of the record. For istance, if you have an epithet of Ninurta with the value ‘Warriorship’ in the field ‘Divine epithets’ and you click on that field, you will find all Ninurta’s epithet where the ‘Divine aspect’ is ‘Warriorship’ (a new tab opens).

• Preset query for the field ‘Sequence’: This is a particular preset query. It returns all epithets of the sequence. Since epithets often appears in a sequence which can extend over many lines, it is useful to easily retrieve the whole sequence which has been atomised during the cataloguing process.

4. EXPORT

• Full export: By clicking on this button, you download the whole records of a search result. It is also possible to download the whole dataset (just click on ‘download’ without starting a query).

• Pivot export: By clicking on this button, you download a pivot table showing the relation of two fields. This export allows the easily creation of a histogram or bar chart. It is only possible to choose two fields. Just open the file with excel or a similar free software, choose the columns of the pivot table and create a chart. You can download a pivot table of the whole data set or of a specific query. If you want to analyse the epithets of a particular deity, you should first start a query searching only for the epithet of that deity.
  There are three general options:

• 'Across all entries': This option considers all entries of the database. It is useful if you want to know the absolute values of the entries in the compared field.

• 'Unique "Epithet"': This option considers entries with the same epithet only one time. It is useful if you want to analyse how two charateristics of epithets - such as semantics, divine apect, structure- are related to each other. For istance, an epithet as ur-saŋ, “Warrior”, which is attested several times and for different deities, is considered only one time. This make sense since the semantic and linguistic characteristics of a particular epithet as well as its divine aspect are always the same.

• 'Unique "Epithet & Deity"': This option considersq entries with same epithet AND and same deity only one time. For istance, the entries for ur-saŋ are considered one time for each different deity. It is useful if you want to analyse how charateristics of epithes are related to charecteristics of deities (gender, divine type).

5. OPEN SCIENCE

Are you working on Sumerian literary texts and do you want to insert divine epithets from your corpus into the database? You can request an account with editor rights.

AO 05376 © Louvre Museum, Paris, France