LAD

Default Search

  • Enter
    Opens the highlighted autocomplete suggestion (the first one unless you move the highlight with the arrow keys).
  • Ctrl + Enter
    Runs a full search across the whole database — lemmas, definitions, quotes, translations, notes, and AHw/CAD raw content (⌘ + Enter on a Mac; Ctrl + click on the Search button does the same, a plain click acts as Enter).
  • Akkadian:
    Lemmas and variants
  • English:
    Definitions and derived senses

Search Modes

  • saru
    Flexible: finds šarru, saru, šāru (ignores diacritics and gemination)
  • sarru
    Semi-flexible: finds šarru, ṣarru (respects gemination, ignores diacritics)
  • šarru
    Exact: finds only šarru (respects all diacritics)

Wildcards

  • paru
    Matches "paru" or words starting with "paru"
  • paru*
    Starts with: words starting with "paru"
  • *paru
    Ends with: words ending with "paru"
  • *paru*
    Contains: words containing "paru" anywhere
  • par?
    Single character: "par" + any one character
  • par@
    Consonant: "par" + any single consonant
  • par#
    Vowel: "par" + any single vowel

Field-specific Search

  • en:mule
    English definitions only
  • de:Maultier
    German definitions only
  • fr:mule
    French definitions only
  • ar:بغل
    Arabic definitions only
  • root:PRʾ
    Root search (supports wildcards)
  • pos:verb
    Part of speech
  • lemma:parû
    Lemma only (no variants)
  • variant:alamattu
    Variants only
  • log:ANŠE
    Logogram search
  • domain:
    Semantic domain — type the colon to list values
  • topic:
    Attestation topic — type the colon to list values
  • ANŠE.KUR.RA
    ALL CAPS triggers logogram search

Attestations search

  • att:bib:KAR 158
    Attestations that cite a text. Type att: and a reference: the list shows the attestations in the order of the text — the reference (for a field search, the matched words), the entry and its meaning. Enter opens the highlighted entry at that attestation; Ctrl+Enter lists them all and searches CAD and AHw for the plain reference.
  • att:akk:šarrum
    The Akkadian text of the attestation. Diacritics are ignored, so sarrum finds šarrum and ba-la-tu finds ba-la-ṭu.
  • att:tr:king
    The translation of the attestation.
  • att:mus:BM 34160
    Museum number. Spaces, dots and hyphens are ignored, so BM 34160, BM.34160 and BM34160 all match.
  • att:src:ebl
    The project a passage is linked to: ebl, seal, archibab, cal.
  • att:period:ob
    Attestations of a period, by the id of the period list: oakk, ob, mb, sb, nb, lb, oa, ma, na … A short id also takes its sub-periods (ob → ob_onwards, oblit, oblex).
  • att:lemma:šarrum
    Attestations belonging to one entry, by its lemma or its entry id.
  • att:bib:ARM period:ob
    Fields combine, each one narrowing the search further. This gives the Old Babylonian attestations from ARM; att:akk:šarrum period:nb the Neo-Babylonian ones containing šarrum.
  • att:KAR 158
    Without a field, every attestation field is searched at once.

Team

Project leader (2025–present)

Prof. Dr. Michael P. Streck

Michael P. Streck has been professor of Ancient Near Eastern Studies and director of the Altorientalisches Institut at Leipzig University since 2003. His research focuses on the grammar, lexicon, onomastics and literature of the Semitic languages of the Ancient Near East, especially Akkadian and early Northwest Semitic.

From 2004 to 2018 he was editor-in-chief of the Reallexikon der Assyriologie und Vorderasiatischen Archäologie.1 Since 2013, he has been overseeing the Supplement to the Akkadian Dictionaries project.2

Research team leader (2025–present)

Dr. Janine Wende

Dr. Janine Wende (PhD 2021) has been active in teaching and research at Leipzig University since 2012. Her focus is on Akkadian grammar and lexicography, as well as cuneiform records from the 3rd and 2nd millennia BCE. From 2017 to 2025, she worked at the Supplement to the Akkadian Dictionaries project as research assistant and co-editor.

Digital development / Research associate (2025–present)

Luis D. Sáenz Santos

Luis D. Sáenz Santos (PhD 2025) is a postdoctoral researcher in Assyriology with expertise in Digital Humanities. He completed his PhD at Heidelberg University with a dissertation on Sumerian and Sumerian-Akkadian omens, and spent one year of his doctoral research (2022–23) at the Digital Pasts Lab of Ariel University, Israel, working on the neural machine translation of Akkadian. He combines philological expertise with technical skills, including image and 3D processing, XML, and web technologies. From 2018 to 2024 he worked for the electronic Babylonian Library (eBL) project at LMU Munich. Before joining LAD, he worked at the Herzog August Bibliothek Wolfenbüttel on a TEI/XML digital edition of a Jesuit manuscript (project De Anima), and at the Seminar für Altorientalistik of the University of Jena on the digitisation and cataloguing of the Hilprecht Collection. At LAD, he is responsible for the development, conceptualization, and implementation of the digital infrastructure.

Research associates

Dr. Eric Schmidtchen (2025–present)

Dr. Eric Schmidtchen worked from 2013 to 2018 on Mesopotamian texts dealing with therapeutic medicine as well as prognostic diagnostic texts as part of the “BabMed” project (FU Berlin);3 there he also wrote his doctoral dissertation on the second chapter of the Diagnostic Handbook (Sakikkû Tablets 3–14, published in 2021). In the years that followed, he served as research associate on several projects focusing on terrestrial divination (viz., the omen series Šumma ālu), specifically on the “Ālu Geneva Project” (Université de Genève)4 in 2020–21 and on the REPAC project (University of Vienna)5 in 2023–24. His work focuses on ancient Mesopotamian (anthropocentric) divination and medicine.

PhD researchers

Jonathan Jarfe, M.A. (2026–present)

Jonathan Jarfe obtained his M.A. from Leipzig University in 2025. He is interested in Akkadian grammar and lexicography, as well as Mesopotamian social history. His dissertation project concerns the fishes of ancient Mesopotamia in cuneiform sources, with a strong focus on the Akkadian lexical tradition.

Student assistants

For the scholars who contribute to the dictionary from outside the team, see Contributors.