Search modalities

In the text box you can enter the text you are searching for by typing one or more strings of characters:

1. Search for a word: write the word in the text box; choose the option Showing results as: word list; click on search.
2. Search for textual portions: write the words in sequence with a space between each word; choose Showing results as: text portions; choose a value from the Word range dropdown menu (see below); then click on search. This search will retrieve the list of textual portions searched for, according to the range parameter you chose.
3. Search for two or more words: this search function operates in the same way as (2) except that you must choose the option Showing results as: word list. This search will retrieve the results of the words searched for, displayed in separate alphabetical lists by their initial letter.

Clitic and special characters

The clitic in the text is equivalent to a space, so if you type b ʾlmqh you will find the occurrences of the textual portion b ʾlmqh but also of b-ʾlmqh. Therefore, the hyphen sign must not be typed in the box.
Special characters – in particular letters with diacritic marks – can be inserted by means of the virtual panel that is displayed by clicking on the icon below the text box.

Wildcard *

(1.), (2.) and (3.) show how you can search for words when the strings of characters that you have entered in the text box coincide with words. However, you can also search for all the words that begin with, end with, begin and end with, or contain a string of characters. To do this, we have provided a function using the wildcard *. Note that the search finds also words beginning, ending or containing lacunae (see also Word lists).

• Search for a word that begins with a specific string of characters: type the initial string followed by *. For example, if you enter ʾlm* the search results will include "ʾlm[... ...]", "ʾlm", "ʾlmnbṭ" etc.
• Search for a word that ends with a specific string of characters: type the string of characters preceded by *. For example, if you type *qh the results will include "[... ...]mqh", "ʾlmqh", "ḏmrwqh" etc.
• Search for a word that begins and ends with specific strings of characters: type a * preceded and followed by strings of characters. For example, if you type m*m the results will include "m[…]m", "mʾhm", "mʾs²mrm", etc.
• Search for a word that contains a specific string of characters: type a string of characters preceded and followed by *. For example, if you type *qh* the results will include "[... ...]wqhʾl", "ʾlmqh", "fqhy", "mwqhm", etc.

Note that the wildcard can be used also in the search for textual portions, combining the different cases; for example: s¹b* w *n.
The isolated wildcard (alone: *; or between spaces: byt * ywm) is equivalent to a word. Therefore, note that if you search for the wildcard * alone, you will retrieve all the words; if you apply some restrictions (see Filters), you will retrieve all the words that satisfy the criteria selected.

Filters

The search for words or portions of text can be refined using one or more filters that will be applied to the meta-information encoded in the text of the inscriptions (Onomastic categories and Textual portions) or relative to the description of different features of the epigraphs (Language and script, Chronology, Textual typology, Sites, Objects, Decorations). For a more detailed description of the filters, see Editorial criteria.
The different types of filters are grouped into expandable sections (Onomastic categories, Textual portions, Language and Script, etc.); they follow the AND logic. For example, if you search for the string *nb* and select the filters male in the section Onomastic categories and Language-->Hadramitic in the Language and Script section, the search will retrieve only the words that are male names containing the pattern nb in inscriptions in Hadramitic language. The sections, except for Onomastic categories, contain one or more menus from which you can select a filter. Also the menus of the same section follow the AND logic. For example, if you search for the pattern *nb* and – in the Language and Script section – select the filters Language-->Hadramitic and Writing technique-->Incision, the search will list only the words containing the pattern *nb* that occur inscriptions written in the Hadramitic language and incised. So taking into account the AND logic between the sections and the menus, in case you were searching for the pattern *nb* with filter male in the section Onomastic categories and the filters Language-->Hadramitic and Writing technique-->Incision in the section Languange and Script, the search would retrieve only the masculine names containing *nb*, found in inscriptions in Hadramitic language and incised.
In the section Onomastic categories, the filters are check boxes, and you can select one or more filters at the same time which are in a AND and/or OR relation: when selected horizontally, the filters follow the AND logic, when selected vertically, they follow the OR logic. Examples:

• If you select the Gender filter, the system will retrieve the words which are a personal name, irrespective of whether they are masculine of feminine, royal names or not, patronymics/ matronymics or not.

• If you select the Male and Female filter, the system will retrieve the words which are a masculine or feminine personal names, irrespective of whether they are royal names or not and whether they are patronymics or not.

• If you select the Male and the Royal filter, the system will retrieve the words which are a masculine personal name, and at the same times are names of kings or of members of the royal family irrespective of whether they are patronymics or not.

• If you select the Male filter and the not Royal filter, the system will retrieve the words which are a masculine personal name, but will exclude the names of kings and of the members of the royal family, irrespective of whether they are patronymics or not.

• If you select the Male filter, the not Royal filter and the e not patronymic/matronymic filter, the system will retrieve the words which are a masculine personal name, but will exclude the names of kings and of the members of the royal family and the patronymics.

• If you select the Patronymic/Matronymic filter, the Lineage name filter and the Theonym filter, the system will list the words which are names of kings, queens and members of royal family, plus the words which are names of lineage, plus the words which are names of gods, in a single list.

And so on.

Filter by

You should note the function Filter by, which allows you to narrow your search to onomastics only or lexicon only. If you choose this option you cannot use the filters of the Onomastic categories, because you have already chosen to restrict your search to words or portions of text that are names (independently of their type: Onomastics only) or are not names (Lexicon only). The other filters can still be applied.

Word range

The word range is the maximum number of words that can intervene between the first word and the last word you are searching for (not counting the first word). Note that to find consistent results, the range number must be the same or higher than the number of spaces in the textual portion searched for. Some examples:

• if you do not select any range, the words are found in textual portions composed solely by the word you searched for, in the exact order they were typed; the same happens if you select the equivalent range to the number of spaces between the typed words. I.e:
• if you search for byt ʾlmqh ywm and you choose Word range: 2, the search will find solely the very textual portion “byt ʾlmqh ywm”.
• if you search for byt ʾlmqh ywm and you choose Word range: 4, the search will find textual portions composed of 3, 4, or 5 words of which byt is the first one and ywm is the last one: "byt ʾlmqh ywm"; "byt ʾlmqh b-ywm"; "byt ʾlmqh w-b ywm".

Order of the strings of characters

The order in which the strings of characters (in the case of two or more) is written is very important. The occurrences that will be identified will have as their first word the first string of characters, followed by the others. For example, if you search for gbʾw w (either as a word list or as a text portion) with the range 1, the results will include gbʾw w but not w gbʾw.

BE CAREFUL: multiple tabs/windows open in the same browser

1. If you open a new tab or a new window in the same browser by clicking on the Textual search button or on one of the Indexes from the left menu bar, and perform a search and/or apply filters, the search parameters and the filters will not influence the new search.
2. If you open more than one tab or window in the same browser by clicking on the breadcrumbs and you use the Search tool or consult the Indices applying filters, the browser will apply to all the tabs or windows the filters you have activated by means the last command, in whichever tab or window.

For example, if in tab A you filter the textual search by Laguage-->Qatabanic and:
In case 1), when you open a tab B and perform a new search with Language-->Hadramitic parameter, this parameter will not be applied to the search in the tab A;
In case 2), if you open a tab B where you filter a new textual search by Language-->Hadramitic or any other filter, when you come back to the tab A, the results will be those provided by the last filters applied, to say those you selected in tab B.

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