Date: Feb. 22, 2001
Link: http://www.jhu.edu/ice/
Source Author or Organization: Initiative for Cuneiform Encoding

The Initiative for Cuneiform Encoding (ICE) is an organization devoted to development of a standard Unicode encoding for the world's oldest writing system: Sumero/Akkadian cuneiform.

The international group combines software engineers, font architects, linguists and Unicode experts. ICE's home site gives a brief description of the three millennia old writing system and the challenges to standardized computer representation it presents. Completion of the project will enable valuable research currently not possible, for example, searching the electronic Chicago Assyrian Dictionary (or the web in general) for cuneiform content or performing automated character recognition of cuneiform tablets (cuneiform OCR).

A current version of the ICE cuneiform database for Windows or Macintosh is also available for download.