Automatic Identification of Cuneiform Fragments Using String Alignment Algorithms

Anonymous

Abstract: The literature from ancient Mesopotamia is still riddled with textual lacunas. Scores of fragments which could potentially fill those lacunas lie unidentified in museums's cabinets, but their identification has traditionally been slow and laborious due to the ambiguities of cuneiform script. The present article presents a novel method for dealing with these ambiguities by using a string alignment algorithm adapted for cuneiform, which makes identification much easier and speeds up the process dramatically. The availability of this algorithm and of corpora on which to use it will advance significantly the reconstruction of Mesopotamian literature.