Database of Neo-Sumerian Texts (BDTNS)

"The Database of Neo-Sumerian Texts is being developed at the Instituto de Filología of the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (Madrid) . The aim of the project is the creation of a relational database able to manage more than 83,000 administrative cuneiform tablets written in the Sumerian language (c. 61,000 published, and 22,000 unpublished). These tablets belong to the Neo-Sumerian period (c. 2100-2000 BC), coming basically from five southern cities of Ancient Mesopotamia -Ur, Nippur, Drehem, Girsu and Umma-, and to a minor extent from some other urban settlements of the Neo-Sumerian period. In the first stage of the project (2002-2004), the following results have been achieved: a) cataloguing of the texts according to their main features; b) gathering of the transliterations of more than 54,000 published and unpublished documents, which amount to one million lines; c) creation of provisional catalogues for reference (catalogue of collections, bibliographical catalogue, catalogue of seals, and catalogues of personal names, deities and toponyms). In the second stage of the project (2005-2007), the texts will be studied in detail with the scope of: a) fixing their relative date and provenance, as well as some other cataloguing data; b) checking, homogenizing and integrating, when necessary, the transliterations of the texts; d) creation of final and open catalogues of reference, needed for the study of the texts."