The Hethitologie Portal Mainz (HPM)

The Hethitologie Portal Mainz (HPM) was constructed from 2001-2007 under the direction of Gernot Wilhelm in cooperation with Gerfrid G.W. Müller with funding from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft.

„Informationsinfrastruktur für digitale Publikation keilschriftlicher Staatsverträge der Hethiter und für darauf bezogene netzbasierte Forschungs­kooperation“ (III N 4 – 554 951, Laufzeit 01.05. 2001 – 31.7.2007)

Two considerations gave initial impetus to the project:

1. The Konkordanz, on which Silvin Košak has been working since 1988 within the academy project “Hethitische Forschungen” and of which four volumes exist since 2001, quickly became outdated due to rapid advances within Hittitology. The transition to an internet-based open-access databank seemed to be the only logical solution to the problem.

2. The traditional format of Hittitological text editions had proven itself inadequate as a basis for research with regard to manuscript dating as well as to the history of texts and text traditions. Therefore, Gernot Wilhelm articulated the need for developing a means of displaying the texts in which it was possible to choose between a synoptic format with syntactically-defined lines, and a format showing the individual line distribution of particular tablets. These demands were realized in a program developed by Gerfrid Müller.

he Hittite state treaties were chosen as a group of texts upon which this process was to be carried out exemplarily, since substantial groundwork had already been laid here by an earlier DFG project (WI 534-09, -010).

After completion of the DFG project, HPM has been continuously expanded within the framework of the academy project “Hethitische Forschungen” as well as through the contributions of numerous Hittitologists worldwide, who have made their own projects accessibly through platform of HPM.

The data processing centre of the Johannes-Gutenberg-Universität Mainz, which also provides internet access for the Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur, Mainz, as well as the data processing centre of the Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg provide the digital resources which enable global access to the databases of HPM.