Ancient Near East Research

Additional Triggers

This skill should also be activated for:

• Gnostic/Orphic: "Nag Hammadi", "Sethian", "Gnostic", "Orphic", "On the Origin of the World", "demiurge"
• Etymology: "purple etymology", "tip'eret", "p-r root", "Membliaros", "Kadmos", "Europa"
• Minoan parallels: "Moses-Minos", "Bezalel-Daedalus", "Kaphtor", "Caphtor", "Linear A"
• OCR/tools: "extract from PDF", "OCR academic", "compile quotations", "theme categorization"
• Paper research: "Thera eruption", "Tempest Stela", "primordial waters", "Gaza as Minoa", "Manat"
• JSTOR: "search JSTOR", "JSTOR article", "download from JSTOR", "saved articles", "academic database"
• Web Discovery: "find papers about", "search for scholarship", "literature search", "Google Scholar", "academic search", "find sources", "discover research", "omnisearch", "Exa search"
• Source Extraction: "extract from URL", "scrape academic page", "stealth fetch", "parse PDF URL", "get abstract from JSTOR"

Ancient Near East Research

Academic research assistant for Biblical Hebrew, Semitic linguistics, and comparative Ancient Near Eastern studies.

Core Capabilities

1. Sefaria API - Fetch Hebrew Bible passages with vocalization, translations, and commentaries
2. Hebrew Text Handling - Proper display of Hebrew with cantillation marks (טעמים)
3. Cross-referencing - Link Biblical texts to Talmud, Midrash, and commentaries
4. Citation Formatting - Academic citation styles for primary sources
5. Cuneiform Databases - Access CDLI and ORACC for Akkadian/Sumerian primary sources

Sefaria API Usage

Fetching Texts

To retrieve a passage, use the Sefaria API endpoint:

https://www.sefaria.org/api/v3/texts/{reference}

Reference Format:

• Book names: Genesis, Exodus, Isaiah, Psalms, etc.
• Chapters/verses: Use periods as separators: Genesis.1.1-3
• Ranges: Genesis.1.1-2.4 (chapter 1 verse 1 through chapter 2 verse 4)

Examples:

• Genesis.1.1-3 - Genesis 1:1-3
• Exodus.20.1-17 - The Ten Commandments
• Isaiah.45.7 - Isaiah 45:7
• Psalms.104 - Full chapter

Running the Fetch Script

For formatted output with Hebrew text and translation:

python3 ~/.claude/skills/ancient-near-east-research/scripts/fetch_sefaria.py "Genesis 1:1-3"
python3 ~/.claude/skills/ancient-near-east-research/scripts/fetch_sefaria.py "Exodus 20:2" --hebrew-only
python3 ~/.claude/skills/ancient-near-east-research/scripts/fetch_sefaria.py "Isaiah 45:7" --with-rashi

Direct API Calls

# Basic verse fetch
curl -s "https://www.sefaria.org/api/v3/texts/Genesis.1.2"

# Search for Hebrew term
curl -s "https://www.sefaria.org/api/search-wrapper?query=תהום&type=text&filters=Tanakh"

Key Passages for ANE Comparative Research

See references/hebrew-passages.md for detailed passage tables and commentaries.

Core passages: Genesis 1:2 (Tehom), Isaiah 27:1 (Leviathan), 1 Kings 18:19 (Asherah), Amos 9:7 (Caphtor)

Cuneiform Database Resources

See references/cuneiform-databases.md for CDLI/ORACC API details and script commands.

Quick access:

• CDLI: https://cdli.earth/artifacts/{P-number}.json
• ORACC: https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/{project}/corpusjson/{P-number}.json
• Key P-number: P480701 = Enuma Elish composite

Web Discovery & Source Extraction

Source Escalation Ladder

| Tier | Tool | When | ANE Examples | |------|------|------|--------------| | 0 | Sefaria / CDLI / ORACC | Known reference, free structured data | Genesis 1:2, P480701, deity lookup | | 1 | Omnisearch --academic | Broad discovery, unknown sources | "Minoan Semitic connections Bronze Age" | | 2 | Exa --category "research paper" | Domain-filtered neural search | --domains jstor.org,persee.fr | | 3 | Firecrawl scrape / parse | Page extraction, PDF-to-markdown | Known URL, remote PDF | | 4 | Obscura ane_stealth_fetch.sh | Bot-protected sites | JSTOR, Scholar, Persée | | 5 | Scrapling | Cloudflare Turnstile | Last resort |

Tier 1: Omnisearch (Broad Discovery)

When the omnisearch skill is available, use it as the entry point for finding new scholarship. The --academic flag routes to Exa's research paper index.

# Broad ANE topic discovery
python3 ~/.claude/skills/omnisearch/scripts/omnisearch.py "Minoan Semitic linguistic connections" --academic

# Parallel multi-provider search for corroboration
python3 ~/.claude/skills/omnisearch/scripts/omnisearch.py "Thera eruption Tempest Stela" --parallel --no-text

# News about recent archaeological finds
python3 ~/.claude/skills/omnisearch/scripts/omnisearch.py "Knossos excavation 2025" --news

Tier 2: Exa Neural Search (Domain-Filtered)

Direct Exa search with ANE-specific domain lists and the research paper category. Use when omnisearch is unavailable or when more control over domains and filtering is needed.

python3 ~/.claude/skills/exa-search/scripts/exa_search.py "Asherah cult Ugarit" \
  --category "research paper" \
  --domains jstor.org persee.fr perseus.tufts.edu academia.edu \
  -n 20 --no-text

ANE Domain List:

| Domain | Content | |--------|---------| | jstor.org | Journals: BASOR, JBL, JNES, JAOS, VT, IEJ | | persee.fr | French academic: BCH, Syria, RHR | | academia.edu | Pre-prints and working papers | | perseus.tufts.edu | Classical texts (Greek, Latin primary sources) | | sefaria.org | Hebrew Bible and rabbinic literature | | cdli.earth | Cuneiform Digital Library | | oracc.museum.upenn.edu | Open Richly Annotated Cuneiform Corpus | | etana.org | Electronic Tools and ANE Archives | | asor.org | American Schools of Oriental Research |

Pre-Built ANE Search Queries:

| Theme | Query | |-------|-------| | Thera | "Thera eruption" OR "Santorini eruption" Bronze Age | | Knossos | "Knossos palace" OR "Minoan archaeology" ritual | | Minos | "Moses Minos" OR "Daedalus Bezalel" OR "Minoan law" | | Palestine | "Asherah Ugarit" OR "Athirat" OR "Tehom Tiamat" | | Linguistics | "Semitic etymology" OR "Hellenosemitica" OR "begadkephat" |

Similar Page Discovery:

python3 ~/.claude/skills/exa-search/scripts/exa_similar.py \
  "https://www.jstor.org/stable/528927" \
  --category "research paper" -n 15

Tier 3: Firecrawl (Page Extraction & PDF Parsing)

For extracting content from known URLs and parsing remote PDFs.

# Scrape an academic page
firecrawl scrape "https://www.persee.fr/doc/..." --only-main-content

# Parse a remote PDF (Fire-PDF v2.9)
python3 ~/.claude/skills/firecrawl/scripts/firecrawl_api.py scrape \
  "https://example.com/paper.pdf" --pdf-mode auto

# Search + scrape in one operation
firecrawl search "Cyrus Gordon Minoan Semitic" --scrape --limit 10

Tier 4: Obscura Stealth Extraction (Bot-Protected Sites)

For JSTOR, Google Scholar, Persée, Perseus, and Academia.edu. Extracts publicly visible metadata and abstracts — not for bypassing paywalls.

# Auto-detect site type from URL
bash ~/.claude/skills/ancient-near-east-research/scripts/ane_stealth_fetch.sh URL

# Google Scholar search
bash ~/.claude/skills/ancient-near-east-research/scripts/ane_stealth_fetch.sh \
  "https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=minoan+semitic+etymology" scholar

Supported site types: scholar, pubmed, jstor, persee, perseus, academia, cdli, oracc, sefaria, general

See references/obscura-ane-patterns.md for site-specific extraction patterns and gotchas.

Complete Research Pipeline

Topic Question
    ↓
Tier 0: Check Sefaria / CDLI / ORACC (known references)
    ↓
Tier 1: Omnisearch --academic (broad discovery, titles only)
    ↓
Tier 2: Exa --category "research paper" --domains [ANE list] (focused search)
    ↓
Pick URLs → Tier 3: Firecrawl scrape / parse (extract content)
    ↓
Bot-blocked? → Tier 4: Obscura ane_stealth_fetch.sh (stealth extraction)
    ↓
PDF downloaded → Mistral OCR → Quotations DB → Themed Compilation

Akkadian Terms and Enuma Elish

See `refe