Geomapping Landscapes of Writing (GLoW)

Geomapping Landscapes of Writing, or GLoW for short, was a three-year research project at Uppsala University headed by Jakob Andersson (PI) and Rune Rattenborg (Co-PI), with additional staff including Seraina Nett (Researcher), Carolin Johansson, Gustav Ryberg Smidt and Nils Melin-Kronsell (Research Assistants) The project is funded through a 7.8 million Swedish kronor (c. €730,000) grant from Riksbankens Jubileumsfond, the Swedish Foundation for Humanities and Social Sciences Research (grant number MXM19-1160:1) for 2020-2022. The project worked to assemble and analyse a full digital record of the cuneiform corpus, a script in widespread use across the Middle East from c. 3400 BCE to 100 CE, and arguably one of the largest bodies of written source material from the the ancient world. Drawing on recent advances in digital humanities and geospatial data mapping, this initiative has significantly expand the empirical scope of researchers in the field and beyond with regards to the easy location and query of basic cuneiform text metadata and origin. Concurrently, project researchers explored large-scale analytical perspectives on the distribution, composition, use and materiality of writing across the full life-span of the cuneiform script. As a first quantifiable and corpus-wide study of one of the greatest corpora of historical records from the ancient world, GLoW provided a benchmark example of the application of digital and spatial computing tools to the study of writing in early human history.

Publications from the project continue to appear in peer-reviewed journals and elsewhere. Apart from articles relating to data collection and index creation efforts (see for example Rattenborg et al. 2021 and Smidt et al. 2024), we have also released several original studies on the materiality and distribution of cuneiform inscriptions in a data-driven perspective. Our article from 2023, The Archaeological Distribution of the Cuneiform Corpus, provided the first comprehensive survey of the geographical extent and scale of the cuneiform corpus as a whole and well illustrates the aims and potential of the GLoW project.

Research output from the project also include several open access data sets and immense contributions of metadata to leading digital research platforms within the field of Assyriology. For example, GLoW has released a comprehensive spatial index of finds locations, the most recent version (CIGS v.1.7, 31 December 2024) of which contains information on close to 600 individual archaeological locales across Europe, Asia and Africa where cuneiform inscriptions have been found. A related index (CIGS-AE v.1.1, 31 December 2024) gives estimates for the overall number of inscriptions found at each location along with a bibliography. Encompassing ca. 430,000 inscribed artefacts and ca. 450 references, this resource provides a unique overview of the cuneiform corpus.

GLoW is among the largest single contributors of data to the catalogue of the Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (CDLI), the authority index of all cuneiform inscriptions being maintained by researchers at Oxford University and the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science. GLoW project staff has logged in excess of 100,000 edits to the CDLI (as of January 2025) with many more still to follow from text metadata collected by the project. Once completed, GLoW will significantly have expanded the coverage and authority of this invaluable digital research platform.