Canonical Cuneiform Texts

Currently experimental and incomplete!

This is a collection of cuneiform tablets in Canonical Text Services format, from the database of the Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. This format is used by a number of viewing an analysis tools for learning and scholarship. It is hoped that this collection will make the texts more accessible.

• Converted by atf2tei from cdliatf_unblocked.atf in the data repository.
• Layout following the CapiTainS Guidelines.

Adding files

Cuneiform transcriptions are normally maintained in the ATF format. To add new texts or update the collection run the transcriptions through the atf2cts tool from the atf2tei package.

For example, to convert a atf file containing one or more tablet transcriptions and add it to the repository:

pip install pipenv # if necessar.
git clone https://github.com/cdli-gh/atf2tei
cd atf2tei
pipenv install
pipenv run python atf2cts.py /path/to/your/transcription.atf
mv data/* ../data/

A simple git status should then show the added (or changed) files.

Updating

There is also a script in the update directory which reads the entire CDLI bulk data export and converts a subset of the records, based on a list of CDLI id numbers or particular catalogue field entries.

git clone --depth https://github.com/cdli-gh/data cdli-data
pipenv install pyoracc
PYTHONPATH=$PWD/atf2tei update/cdli2cts.py -d cdli-data -o .

The data repository is quite large. Passing the --depth option to git downloads only the most recent changes, reducing the size to several hundred MB.

Until atf2cts is properly packaged, it also needs to be checked out with git and the location passed through the PYTHONPATH environment variable. See the section above about added files for how to do this.

A docker container configuration is included which can be used to set up automatic updates. See update for details.