Primary forms, variant forms, and correspondences

The core of the Hittite Name Finder consists of a list of names which can be filtered and searched, each one provided with a set of metadata. The name forms displayed in the grid items visible to the user correspond to normalized spellings of the attested names. When two or more forms are thought to represent variant forms of one name (e.g. Kattaḫḫa, Ḫataḫḫa, Ḫataḫga, Ḫatagga, Ḫatakki, Ḫatkatta), only one of them is displayed in the grid, while the other ones are booked as ‘variant forms’ within the popup window that can be opened by clicking on a name in the grid (variant forms, together with variant spellings and ‘correspondences’, are linked to the relevant primary name, see Search parameters). Note that the distinction of primary and variant forms is not yet implemented for personal names. Names which are treated separately within the grid but are thought to have been equated with each other at least in some contexts are cross-referenced as ‘correspondences’ in the popup windows (e.g., Kattaḫḫa and MUNUS.LUGAL).

Search parameters

Both ‘variant forms’ and ‘correspondences’ are linked to the relevant primary names and count as matches when performing a query: i.e., when searching after Ḫatkatta or MUNUS.LUGAL one finds (also) Kattaḫḫa in the search results. The search process is insensitive to diacritics, double letters, and voice (k/g, t/d, p/b). E.g., no matters whether one searches after “gadaha”, “kadaha”, “kataḫa”, “kaaaaadahhhaa” (etc), the name Kattaḫḫa will always be among the matches. NB: this applies to all searchable forms, with no distinction between Sumerograms, Akkadograms, and phonetically written Hittite. E.g., a search after “arat” will return (also) ARAD-D10 among the results.

Regular expressions

As default, the search box allows searching with regular expressions (e.g., the characters ^ and $ can be used as left- and right-end markers respectively: a query after “ili$” will return only names ending in -ili, and so on). Combining multiple regex patterns can be useful in evaluating possible restorations: e.g., in the case of a fragmentary name with a RA somewhere in the middle and a ḪA at the very end, one may want to search after “.*ra.*ha$” (“.” matches any single character, “*” matches the preceding element zero or more time). NB: since the period counts as a regular expression, it must be omitted when searching for composite Sumerograms, otherwise the returned matches will not meet the query’s intention: e.g., a query after A.AB will not return A.AB.BA.

Filters

Apart from using the search box, the names can be sorted out by using the filters corresponding to the categories “Type”, “Spelling”, and “Completeness”. The spelling of a name is classified as “logographic” when it consists of, or begins with, a logographically written element or an uninterpreted hieroglyphic sign.

Attestations and tablet search

The attestations listed for each name in the popup windows are hyperlinked to the corresponding entries of the Konkordanz der hethitischen Keilschrifttafeln at HPM (the link works only for publication numbers of cuneiform tablets, and returns a blank page in all other instances). Users can also search after tablets (or publication installments): e.g., a search for “KBo 40” will return all tablet fragments published in KBo 40 which contain names included in the LAMAN corpus (for which see above); the relevant names are displayed in a popup window by clicking on a tablet (fragment).