Short Introduction

Coverage

Coverage for Egypt and the Nile Valley

Because of its organic growth and evolving focus since 2005, Trismegistos Texts has a very different coverage according to region, period and genre. The following tables provide estimations of the current coverage for published documents. For unpublished documents, the coverage is very problematic to estimate. Our main source of information are the collection-based tools.

800 BC - AD 800

Language / Script / Genre	Coverage of Trismegistos Texts (estimated)
Greek papyrology	almost 100%
Greek epigraphy	almost 100%
Latin papyrology	almost 100%
Latin epigraphy	almost 100%
Demotic papyrology and epigraphy	almost 100%
Hieroglyphic and hieratic papyrology	ca. 95% ?
Hieroglyphic and hieratic epigraphy	perhaps 40% ? (excluding 'temple texts')
Coptic papyrology	almost 100%
Coptic epigraphy	perhaps 40% ?
Aramaic papyrology and epigraphy	ca. 95% ?
Meroitic epigraphy	ca. 95% ?
Old Nubian papyrology and epigraphy	perhaps 90% ?
Arabic papyrology	perhaps 90% ?

Before 800 BC

Language / Script / Genre	Coverage of Trismegistos Texts (estimated)
Hieroglyphic and hieratic papyrology	only Books of the Dead and documentary material from Deir el-Medina (both almost 100%)
Hieroglyphic and hieratic epigraphy	almost completely lacking

After AD 800

Language / Script / Genre	Coverage of Trismegistos Texts (estimated)
Greek papyrology and epigraphy	ca. 90% ?
Old Nubian papyrology and epigraphy	ca. 50% ?
Coptic papyrology	only documentary material (almost 100%)
Coptic epigraphy	limited coverage, only Koptisches Sammelbuch material
Arabic papyrology	only documents, ca. 10% ?
Arabic epigraphy	completely lacking
Hebrew material (e.g. Geniza)	completely lacking

Coverage for the Ancient World in general

Trismegistos has traditionally focused on Egypt and the Nile Valley, but is now expanding to the Ancient World (800 BC - AD 800) in general (see history). As this is a long term ambition, our coverage differs substantially from region to region and language to language.

The tables below provide estimations of the current coverage for published documents in various languages and scripts on which these figures are based. For unpublished documents, our coverage approaches zero. We rely completely on published lists and partner projects.

Greek and Latin (800 BC - AD 800)

Language / Script / Genre	Coverage of Trismegistos Texts (estimated)
Greek and Latin 'papyrology'	almost 100%: all Egyptian material; mainly wooden tablets and the odd papyrus from outside Egypt
Greek epigraphy (West)	almost all inscriptions from the modern continent of Africa west of Libya (ancient Cyrenaica); working towards a full coverage for the West outside Rome
Greek epigraphy (East)	almost all of the Egyptian material; for outside Egypt, only a few entries from the Prosopographia Ptolemaica, some material in EAGLE partners, and most of the material from Macedonia
Latin epigraphy	almost 100%

Local languages (selection)

Language / Script / Genre	Coverage of Trismegistos Texts (estimated)
Etruscan	almost 100% on the basis of Meiser's forthcoming second edition of Rix, Etruskische Texte
Italic languages	almost 100% on the basis of Crawford, Imagines Italicae
Messapian	almost 100% on the basis of Monumenta Linguae Messapicae
Celtiberian	almost 100% on the basis of Hesperia
Iberian and related languages	almost completely missing
Cuneiform	completely missing (despite large numbers!)

For a full overview of all languages in Trismegistos and an estimate of their coverage, see TM Languages

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