By making the form and content of cuneiform texts available online, the CDLI is opening pathways to the rich historical tradition of the ancient Middle East. In close collaboration with researchers, museums and an engaged public, the project seeks to unharness the extraordinary content of these earliest witnesses to our shared world heritage.
The Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (CDLI) represents the efforts of an international group of Assyriologists, museum curators and historians of science to make available through the internet the form and content of cuneiform inscriptions dating from the beginning of writing, ca. 3350 BC, until the end of the pre-Christian era. We estimate the number of these artifacts currently kept in public and private collections to exceed 500,000 exemplars, of which now more than 320,000 have been catalogued in electronic form by the CDLI.