Latin Inscriptions - The Internet Release: Help

Latin Inscriptions - The Internet Release

Using the "Latin Inscriptions". Some Suggestions

After connecting to the Folio-Server (http://www.cdromverlag.de/ILS/) you will see this screen:

Calling up the ILS-Infobase, you get this screen:

You start your search clicking on the QUERY-Button (second from bottom). The Query Box will open this way:

You start your search by typing in the query field the words you are looking for (the letter V is used both for V and U.). If you are looking for a certain name or word, just enter the string - (e.g.) the name FELICIA.

Having entered the letters, click on the search button and wait for the result to be displayed in the results map. You will get a number of "hits" (getting larger with every update), necessarily not all relevant for this search, but several inscriptions among them which give you the name you were looking for:

When the results map shows the end of the search and the number of "hits", click on the DOCUMENT-Icon (the one with the open book) to display all the inscriptions which match your search conditions.

The first hit will be displayed; the string you were looking for is marked by red arrows. Clicking on the NEXT HIT-Button the next inscription with this string will be displayed - and so forth.

The Folio Server is exceptionally fast; any delays in the display of results are related to general internet problems or due to the limitations of your hardware.

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There may be other occurences of the name FELICIA, e.g. in dedications, in the form of FELICIAE. For this reason you should truncate the name with an asterisk: FELICIA*. This will give you many more hits, not all of them relevant, but also with more occurences of this name.

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Using the Operator OR you may look for two or more strings at the same time. Entering FELICIA* OR FELICVL* will give you then the search result for Felicia or Felicula.

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You may use wildcard characters within searches. The question mark (?) stands for single characters; the asterisk (*) stands for multiple characters. AVRE*I* will give you then the name AVRELIVS both written with one and with two L:

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If you are looking for a certain combination of words, i. e. linked by the operator AND, you enter as many words (strings) as you like; you may truncate them with an asterisk.

NEG* VIN* will display some wine merchants in the Empire on your screen.

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Greek letters are transscribed according to the TLG-Standard.

You search for (e. g.) Greek texts mentioning Hadrian with ADRI*, or for texts mentioning Ephesus with EFES*.

Due to the templates with their display of sorted wordlists, the search for greek words is much easier using the ILatEyst-version for local networks and PCs.

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A very useful option is the combination search for exactly matching strings, including the further option of proximity searches. You delimit these queries with quotation marks.

Entering just VIX XXX will give you not only inscriptions indicating a life span of thirty years, but also many irrelevant results.

Entering "VIX ANN XXX", however, will perform a "phrase search" - i.e. the search-engine will look for inscriptions which display these words exactly in this order and distance:

Entering "VIX XXX"/4 - omitting ANN (since this may also be written just AN) will give you the best result, with the two strings displayed within, in this case, a distance of not more than four words. You should try other distances to get the best results for different searches:

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An important option, especially considering the continuing growth of this infobase, is the limitation of searches to single volumes of L'Année Epigrapique, the C.I.L., or the I.L.S.

For limiting your searches in this way you may enter the following "delimiters" in combination with search-strings:

ILS for the I.L.S, five for CIL V, ten for CIL X, twelve for CIL XII, thirteen for CIL XIII, the years 1988 to 1992 for the AE.

The AE-Volumes are "delimited" with the year of publication. Entering (e.g.) 1992 and VIX* will give you all inscriptions in AE 1992 with the indication of a life span:

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It will take some time, naturally, to make the complete corpus of Latin inscriptions available on the internet in this way; this is not an infinite task, but it won't be complete in just a year, and, not to forget, it will need a certain amount of funding by academic institutions.

[Gnomon-Titelseite]