11 July 2025 The Future is the Product of the Past

From Ancient Scripts to Digital Insights: TLHdig 0.2 Breathes New Life into Hittite Cuneiform Tablets

The UNESCO World Heritage Site of Boğazköy-Hattuša, once the capital of the Hittite Empire during the late Bronze Age (circa 1650 to 1200 BC), is now at the forefront of digital humanities research. This ancient site, located in northern Türkiye, has yielded a wealth of cuneiform tablets that represent one of the largest collections of texts from the ancient Near East, including thousands of documents in Hittite and other Anatolian languages, as well as Sumerian, Akkadian, and Hurrian texts.

Since its launch in 2023, the Thesaurus Linguarum Hethaeorum Digitalis (TLHdig 0.1) has provided researchers and students with unprecedented online access to these historical sources through the Hethitologie-Portal Mainz platform. The tool has quickly gained popularity among Hittitologists, recording over 100,000 accesses per month.

The latest version, TLHdig 0.2, has significantly expanded its capabilities, now encompassing more than 98% of all published sources—approximately 22,000 XML text documents, many containing multiple rejoined fragments. The current corpus boasts nearly 400,000 transliterated lines, with plans for TLHdig 1.0, expected in late 2025, to provide complete coverage of all published texts.

Researchers can now browse and search texts in both transliteration and cuneiform, utilizing various filters for more complex queries. TLHdig is seamlessly integrated within the Hethitologie-Portal Mainz infrastructure, connecting users to a range of digital catalog tools, media databases, and text editions.

TLHdig is not just a tool; it is a community-driven research platform. The TLHdig team has compiled the corpus using both digital and analogue resources developed by generations of Hittitologists, including contributions from various digital text edition projects on the Hethitologie-Portal Mainz.

The platform also features an online submission pipeline, allowing scholars to publish new Hittite cuneiform texts easily. Users can input their transliterations into the creator interface and follow a step-by-step manual for guidance, ensuring a smooth submission process.

This collaborative and dynamic approach ensures that TLHdig will continue to evolve alongside the field of Hittite studies, enhancing both the quantity and quality of available data. It serves as a foundational resource for text editions and supports a wide array of research methodologies, including innovative AI applications.

The development of TLHdig has been funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) and is led by a team of esteemed scholars: Professor Gerfrid Müller from the Mainz Academy of Sciences and Literature and the University of Würzburg, Professor Doris Prechel from the University of Mainz, Professor Elisabeth Rieken from the University of Marburg, and Professor Daniel Schwemer from the University of Würzburg.

As the digital landscape continues to transform the study of ancient texts, TLHdig stands as a testament to the power of collaboration and innovation in the pursuit of knowledge about the Hittite Empire and its rich historical legacy.

Universität Würzburg

Cover Image Credit: From cuneiform to code: section of a Hittite cuneiform text found in Boğazköy-Hattuša in 2024 (photo and XML text). Image Credit: Daniel Schwemer / Universität Würzburg

If this news piqued your interest, we also recommend checking out our article titled “Turkish Researchers Use Artificial Intelligence to Read Cuneiform Hittite Tablets.”

TLHdig on Hethitologie-Portal Mainz: https://www.hethport.uni-wuerzburg.de/TLHdig/

Related Articles

Archaeologists Unearth Cisterns at Izmir’s Ancient “City of Mother Goddess”

2 June 2021

2 June 2021

In the ancient city of Metropolis, in western Turkey, in the province of Izmir, something that played an important role...

A burial complex dating to the Second Intermediate Period has been discovered at the Dra Abu el-Naga necropolis at Luxor

12 April 2023

12 April 2023

At the Dra Abu el-Naga necropolis in Luxor, a family burial complex from the Second Intermediate Period has been found....

Naked Venus statue discovered in a Roman garbage dump in France

29 March 2023

29 March 2023

Archaeologists from the French National Institute for Preventative Archaeological Research (Inrap) has been uncovered a trove of artifacts, including two...

9,000-Year-Old Rock Art Suggests Early Humans Interacted with Dinosaur Footprints

22 February 2025

22 February 2025

In Brazil, researchers have made an extraordinary discovery of ancient rock art dating back over 9,000 years, found alongside dinosaur...

The 2800-year-old Urartians Lake, which is an engineering masterpiece of its time, is drying

13 July 2023

13 July 2023

Keşiş Lake in Van, in eastern Turkey, which was built by the Urartu King Rusa 2,800 years ago, was negatively...

2100-year-old women skeleton found lying in bronze ‘Mermaid Bed’

4 June 2022

4 June 2022

Archaeologists have discovered the 2100-year-old skeleton of a woman lying in a bronze ‘Mermaid Bed’ near the city of Kozani...

Archaeologists uncover Europe’s oldest lakeside stilt village behind a fortress of defensive spikes

11 August 2023

11 August 2023

Under the turquoise waters of Lake Ohrid, the “Pearl of the Balkans” Scientists have uncovered what may be one of...

Farmer was Discovers 2600-year-old Stone Slab of Pharaoh Apries

19 June 2021

19 June 2021

The Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities announced that a farmer in Ismailia, Egypt, uncovered a 2,600-year-old stone monument erected by Pharaoh...

Jomon Ruins Adding to UNESCO World Heritage List

26 May 2021

26 May 2021

An international advisory panel has recommended that a group of ruins from the ancient Jomon period in northern Japan is...

Al-Aqiser Church, Disappears in the Depths of The Iraqi Desert

10 May 2021

10 May 2021

In a country that has been devastated by successive conflicts and economic crises, Al-Aqiser, like the numerous Christian, Islamic and...

“Oracle Bone Inscriptions”, the world’s oldest writing system that has not disappeared in history

5 June 2023

5 June 2023

“Jiaguwen,” or the oracle bone inscriptions, are thought to be the earliest fully-developed characters as well as the source of...

Meaning of Agora Gate Found in Turkey’s Ancient City of Aizanoi

8 June 2021

8 June 2021

The good news continues to come from the ancient city of Aizanoi, located in Çavdarhisar district, 50 km from Kütahya....

New research reveals that Baltic amber was transported to the most westerly region of the continent more than 5,000 years ago

21 October 2023

21 October 2023

A team of scientists has identified the oldest pieces of Baltic amber ever found on the Iberian Peninsula, revealing that...

Isles of Scilly Iron Age warrior buried with a mirror and sword was probably a woman

27 July 2023

27 July 2023

Archaeologists conducted a DNA analysis of the tooth enamel of a person who died more than two millennia ago on...

New Discoveries of Sanxingdui Ancient City to be Announced

19 March 2021

19 March 2021

Sanxingdui, which literally means “Stacks of Three Stars”, is a cultural relic of the Kingdom of Shu in ancient China....