Cuneiform Inscriptions Geographical Site Index (CIGS)

This index contains a basic set of primary spatial, toponym, attribute, and external link information on more than 550 archaeological locations where texts written in cuneiform and derived scripts have been found, prepared by researchers of the Department of Linguistics and Philology of Uppsala University. The index is intended as a tool for students and researchers in cuneiform studies and related areas and as an aid to cultural heritage managers and educators in communicating and safeguarding this unique body of world written heritage. The index remains under development and is regularly updated. The authors will very much appreciate notices of any omissions, errors, or inaccuracies. For further details, see Rattenborg et al. 2021.

The version 1.3 index contains a total nineteen fields, namely one primary ID, one spatial accuracy field, six integer and string fields for external data links, eight string fields with toponyms, and two integer fields making up the point coordinate of the record. Coordinates given use the WGS 1984 geographic coordinate reference system (EPSG 4326) and have been truncated to four decimal digits. Site locations have been traced from archaeological gazetteers and web mapping services and digitally generated from optical recognition using current and legacy satellite imagery datasets in QGIS 3.x.