The Arabic Papyrology Database
www.naher-osten.lmu.de/apd

How to use TYPOLOGY (TYPES)

The typology search tool provides search possibilities in the APD documents using typological criteria defined in our Formal typology of Arabic documents. There are two search modi, the Simple Search with the search filters Metadata and String, and the Advanced Search with the search filters Metadata, String, Types, Layout and 1st/2nd person forms.

How to use the search filters:

  • Metadata and Types: Using only the filters Metadata and/or Types will offer a broader range of results, showing also documents which contain some basic information on the types, but whose text is not typologically marked up.
  • String: Searches the text of all documents containing typological mark-up. Use the Arabic string to search all document texts with layout mark-up, the Latin string to search all document texts with typological mark-up. The Latin string can be entered either in APD transcription or as a simple ASCII string without diacritics in which Hamza and ʿAyn can be replaced by an underscore (wildcard).
  • Types: Any element in the tree (go to full printable view) can be selected to search for documents of a certain type, subtype group or subtype. The selected element is highlighted in orange.
  • Layout: Color the given layout fields according to the layout of the document you want to classify. Use
    • grey for „uncertain“ (e.g. missing pieces)
    • blue for „text in this area“
    • empty for „no text in this area“
  • We recommend the following procedure for your search:
    1. Try a simple search with Types if you recognize a key formula (reflected in the subtype names) or if you would like to get an overview of the documents of a certain type, subtype or subtype group according to our typology.
    2. Otherwise search with some layout information or metadata.
    3. Finally you can try a string search in the text of all documents containing typological mark-up.

How to use the results:

- Subtype results:

First you will be shown the subtype results on the left side, grouped by subtypes (with the type number in our tree, e.g. „A6. ʾaṭāla al-lāhu“ meaning subtype „ʾaṭāla al-lāhu“ belonging to type A6.) and ordered by their frequency. For each subtype result you are given the number of documents, the find spots and the time range. If you hover above the blue subtype name, a description of this subtype will appear on the right side (if it is already available). If you click on the subtype name, you will have the document results for this subtype on the right side below its description.

- Subtype descriptions:

Viewing the subtype description on the right side, you can click on the blue subtype name there to see the long version of this description, containing also a short introductory text and a list of document examples. Along with the long subtype descriptions you will also find descriptions of the subtype groups.

- Document results:

Here you find the list of documents belonging to the subtype you selected, each with the document name, a descriptive title and some metadata (place of origin plus Trismegistos link if available, and date). If the document is already marked up typologically, you have the link STRUCTURE to view its formal analysis by document structure and layout. The link TEXT leads you to the full text view of the document in the APD, with its different layers of transcription. For the typologically marked-up documents, you will also be displayed the layout sketch (if available) and the phrases defining the structure of the document. Clicking on a phrase effects a search for the documents containing this phrase.