Cuneify

Cuneify is a tool to turn a transliteration (of Sumerian or Babylonian) to the corresponding cuneiform.

Select the appropriate font for the language/period and type a transliteration in the text box, then hit <enter> to convert it into cuneiform.

Check the 'signlist' box to make a summary of the signs used with their counts and mouseover to see the frequency of the sign and reading. e.g. "Click to use this text.e₂.gal {m}aš-šur-pap-a šid aš-šur-ni-šit {d}bad u {d}maš na-ra-am {d}a-nim u {d}da-gan ka-šu-uš dingir{meš} gal{meš}" (click to use this text)
[From "The Epithets of Assurnasirpal II", the first reading in "Complete Babylonian", Martin Worthington, 2nd ed. 2018.]

(Click in the table below to copy transliterations or cuneiform.)

Details

You can use ASCII or unicode conventions. ('š' = 'sz'; 'ğ' = 'j', 'e₂' = 'e2', 'ṣ' = 's,', 'ṭ' = 't,', 'má' = 'ma2' etc.) Before conversion, some characters (i.e. '<>[]_⌈⌉⸢⸣') are removed and others converted into spaces (i.e. '{}*,;:!()'). Transliterations are then split on space, dash and full stop. Transliterations are compared with the readings used by cuneifyplus. Numbers starting with '0x' are treated as unicode codepoints, so '0x12032' = '𒀲'. Where the sign list notes a signlist number, you can use that (e.g. aBZL87, LAK709b, MZL3, REC145, ELLES396, KWU689), though only LAK has extensive coverage. Ambiguous transliterations (e.g. ansze) are enclosed in square brackets, though some readings may not display in the font selected. Unrecognized sequences should display unchanged. I attempt to preserve line breaks. You can press shift-<enter> to type a line break without converting.

This has only been tested on Chrome browser under Linux.

Fonts

Using most browsers, the cuneiform should appear on your screen, as the fonts are embedded in the website. However, if you wish to copy-and-paste (e.g. into a Word document), you may need to install a font or another that supports the Cuneiform Unicode block in order for the characters to display correctly. To install the fonts, follow the links below.

Credit

The page was inspired by ORACC cuneify and cuneifyplus (hosted at http://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/cuneifyplus.) I wanted to create a version that made it easy to cuneify multiple texts consecutively, and this version has the added benefit of not requiring a server, so it should work off-line.

The signlist was created using ORACC's XML signlist.

This page and data structures were created, using resources mentioned in the references above. They are made available with a CC-BY 4.0 license, by Andrew Senior. Please do cite this page if you use it.

This page derives from my original Anatolian / Luwian Hieroglpyhics converter page.

You may also be interested in my Sign search to help identify a cuneiform sign from its appearance.

and Sign counts to show the frequencies of different signs and readings.

Corrections, suggestions and feature-requests are welcome (email below).

Email: andrew[at]andrewsenior.com

Version history

2022 Original version using Tom Gillam's cuneifyplus signlist.
2023-02-04 Replaced the signlist with one extracted from the ORACC signlist. Added processing of accents & lookup by signlist-number. 2023-02-27 Lookup with case-independence. Creation of sign-list. Remove ! in transliteration. Handle unicode em-dash and en-dash. Sorting of sign-list by frequency. 2023-03-18 Added Sinacherib and CuneiformComposite fonts. Turned off auto-copy feature.