The Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature (ETCSL) is an online

digital library A digital library (also called an online library, an internet library, a digital repository, a library without walls, or a digital collection) is an online database of digital resources that can include text, still images, audio, video, digital ...

of texts and translations of Sumerian literature that was created by a now-completed project based at the Oriental Institute of the

University of Oxford The University of Oxford is a collegiate university, collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the List of oldest un ...

. This project's website contains "Sumerian text, English prose translation and bibliographical information" for "over 400 literary works composed in the Sumerian language in ancient Mesopotamia (modern Iraq) during the late third and early second millennia BCE." It is both browsable and searchable and includes transliterations, composite texts, a bibliography of Sumerian literature and a guide to spelling conventions for proper nouns and literary forms. The purpose of the project was to make Sumerian literature accessible to those wishing to read or study it, and make it known to a wider public. The project was founded by Jeremy Black in 1997 and is based at the Oriental Institute of the

. It was funded by the University along with the

Leverhulme Trust The Leverhulme Trust () is a large national grant-making organisation in the United Kingdom. It was established in 1925 under the will of the 1st Viscount Leverhulme (1851–1925), with the instruction that its resources should be used to cover ...

and the

Arts and Humanities Research Board The arts or creative arts are a vast range of human practices involving creative expression, storytelling, and cultural participation. The arts encompass diverse and plural modes of thought, deeds, and existence in an extensive range of me ...

. Various other bodies have been involved in the project including

All Souls College All Souls College (official name: The College of All Souls of the Faithful Departed, of Oxford) is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. Unique to All Souls, all of its members automatically become fellows (i.e., full me ...

Oxford Oxford () is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and non-metropolitan district in Oxfordshire, England, of which it is the county town. The city is home to the University of Oxford, the List of oldest universities in continuou ...

, the

British Academy The British Academy for the Promotion of Historical, Philosophical and Philological Studies is the United Kingdom's national academy for the humanities and the social sciences. It was established in 1902 and received its royal charter in the sa ...

, the Hungarian Scientific Research Fund (OTKA) and the

Hungarian Academy of Sciences The Hungarian Academy of Sciences ( , MTA) is Hungary’s foremost and most prestigious learned society. Its headquarters are located along the banks of the Danube in Budapest, between Széchenyi rakpart and Akadémia utca. The Academy's primar ...

. Contributors to the project have included Graham Cunningham,

Eleanor Robson Eleanor Robson, (born 1969) is a British Assyriologist and academic. She is Professor of Ancient Middle Eastern History at University College London. She is a former chair of the British Institute for the Study of Iraq and a Quondam fellow of ...

, Gabor Zolyomi, Miguel Civil, Bendt Alster, Joachim Krecher and Piotr Michalowski. Other libraries from the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, or UChi) is a Private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Its main campus is in the Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood on Chicago's South Side, Chic ...

and the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (Penn or UPenn) is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. One of nine colonial colleges, it was chartered in 1755 through the efforts of f ...

now usually follow the ETCSL in regards to abbreviations. Funding for the project ended and it was closed in 2006, but the web site remains available.

Publications

* J.A. Black, et al., ''The Literature of Ancient Sumer'',

Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the publishing house of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world. Its first book was printed in Oxford in 1478, with the Press officially granted the legal right to print books ...

, 2004. . * J. Ebeling and G. Cunningham (eds.), ''Analysing Literary Sumerian: Corpus-Based Approaches'', London: Equinox, 2007. .

References

External links

ETCSL websiteETCSL General Information
Projects established in 1997 Projects disestablished in 2006 Research projects British digital libraries Archaeological databases Literature websites Culture of the University of Oxford Cuneiform Sumerian literature *Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature {{philology-stub