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Using the CAMS glossaries

There are three glossaries generated from the Corpus of Ancient Mesopotamian Scholarship (CAMS [http://cdl.museum.upenn.edu/cgi-bin/cdlpager?project=cams]): Akkadian [http://cdl.museum.upenn.edu/cgi-bin/cdlpager?project=cams&lang=akk&prod=ecbd] words, Sumerian words, and proper nouns [http://cdl.museum.upenn.edu/cgi-bin/cdlpager?project=cams&lang=qpn&prod=ecbd]. This page describes how to use them.

The glossaries all work in essentially the same way. They can be accessed via two routes:

• The links at top left of every CAMS corpus page take you to the home page of each glossary. From there you can browse or search the entire glossary.
• In Item View, each transliterated word in the corpus is linked to a glossary entry. When you place your cursor over the word, the outline entry pops up; when you click on the word you are taken to the full entry.

Glossary home pages

The home page of each glossary is divided into two unequal halves. There is a sidebar on the left, and a mostly empty space on the right.

The left-hand sidebar is divided into four horizontal zones by three red lines:

• The links at the top take you back to the GKAB website or to the CAMS corpus home page.
• Beneath the second red line is a search box which allows you find words in the glossary. Results are displayed in the right hand part of the screen. There is more information on searching the glossaries below.
• Beneath the third red line are links to the browsable glossary (either Akkadian [http://cdl.museum.upenn.edu/cgi-bin/cdlpager?project=cams&lang=akk&prod=ecbd], Sumerian, or proper nouns [http://cdl.museum.upenn.edu/cgi-bin/cdlpager?project=cams&lang=qpn&prod=ecbd]), letter by letter and as one big file.

Searching the glossaries

To use the search box, type the word(s) you are looking for, and click "find".

• In the Akkadian [http://cdl.museum.upenn.edu/cgi-bin/cdlpager?project=cams&lang=akk&prod=ecbd] and Sumerian glossaries you can search for English words as well as words in the relevant ancient language: normalised Akkadian or Sumerian.
• In the proper nouns [http://cdl.museum.upenn.edu/cgi-bin/cdlpager?project=cams&lang=qpn&prod=ecbd] glossary you can search for the names of people, deities, places, etc. that occur in the CAMS corpus.
• If you want to search for transliterations, use the search function on the Page View or Item View.

To search for special characters, use the following conventions:

• type normal vowels instead of long vowels with macrons or circumflexes;
• type the sequences sz, s,, and t, respectively instead of the consonants š, ş, and ţ.

The results of a search are shown the main window, listed in alphabetical order of ancient words. Each entry also shows the number of times the word occurs in the CAMS corpus, and in which period. Click on any blue word (in an ancient language or English) to see the full glossary entry for that word.

Glossary entries

Single glossary entries are divided into three parts:

• The top line is a summary, showing the citation form (dictionary headword or lemma), guide translation(s), part(s) of speech, and number of instances in the CAMS corpus (as edited so far). You can click on this number to see all the instances in context.
• The next section shows periods, spellings (transliterations), and normalisations of all the CAMS attestations. Click on any of these to see them shown in context. A new window will appear, showing the relevant lines of manuscript or composite text, with the glossary word highlighted. You can then click on the designation to see the whole transliteration and translation.
• The third and final section lists the different meanings of the word within the CAMS corpus, showing their relative frequencies. Click on any of the frequencies to see the headwords in context.

In this view, you can hide or show the left-hand sidebar by clicking on [fullscreen] or [splitscreen] at the top of the window. To return to your search results, click on PAGE VIEW at the top right.

Browsable glossaries

You can browse a glossary by clicking on an individual letter or on "One big file" in the left-hand sidebar of a glossary home page. Each entry is the same as in the individual glossary entries.