Attestation density in the TLA

corpus
TLA
tools

A way of plotting when a lemma is attested, given that Egyptian texts are dated to spans rather than to years.

Published

15 September 2026

Egyptian texts are almost never dated to a year, but to a reign, a dynasty, a period — to a span from ten to several hundred years wide.

The curves here spread each token evenly across the dating span of its text: a token from a text dated to a hundred years contributes one hundredth to each of those years, a token from a text dated to ten years contributes one tenth. Summed over the corpus this gives a weight for each year, and those weights are the curve.

Reading the plot

The y-axis is the sum of the weights, in tokens per year. The pale line is the raw sum, the bold line the same data smoothed with a Gaussian kernel of 25 years; the distance between them shows how much of the shape comes from the data and how much from the smoothing. The bands in the background are the conventional periods.

In absolute mode the curve shows the lemma’s own weight. Since closely dated texts give off more weight per year than loosely dated ones, and the corpus is unevenly dense across the centuries, it rises and falls with the corpus as much as with the word. In relative mode the same weight is divided by the weight of all lemmatised tokens of the same year.

Attestation density of mꜣꜣ and ptr over time, in tokens per year. Early Dynastic Period Old Kingdom 1st Intermediate Period Middle Kingdom 2nd Intermediate Period New Kingdom 3rd Intermediate Period Late Period Graeco-Roman Period 2600 BCE 2400 BCE 2200 BCE 2000 BCE 1800 BCE 1600 BCE 1400 BCE 1200 BCE 1000 BCE 800 BCE 600 BCE 400 BCE 200 BCE 0 CE 200 CE 0.0 2.00 4.00 6.00 8.00 10.0 tokens per year mꜣꜣ — to see; to look 66270 · 2,848 tokens ptr — to see; to behold 62900 · 560 tokens
Figure 1: Two verbs of seeing, mꜣꜣ and ptr, in absolute mode.

What is counted

Every token carrying a lemma ID is counted; broken and unidentified words contribute nothing. Alternative readings of a passage are stored as separate files in the TLA and would be counted twice, so only the canonical reading is used. Where a text carries several dating statements, its weight is divided among them.

Two exclusions: texts whose dating carries no year interval in the thesaurus drop out, and lemmata with fewer than three tokens in the corpus are not exported at all.

Comparing two forms

I built this not for the single curve but for the comparison of two. Where a Middle Egyptian form and its Late Egyptian counterpart compete, plotting both in one frame shows whether the one recedes as the other advances, whether they stand side by side for centuries, and where they cross — if they do.

This needs the relative mode (Figure 2). In absolute terms both curves rise and fall with the corpus, and two forms attested in the same texts will look alike however different their histories; only as shares of the same year’s evidence can they be read against each other.

Attestation density of mꜣꜣ and ptr over time, as a share of the year's evidence. Early Dynastic Period Old Kingdom 1st Intermediate Period Middle Kingdom 2nd Intermediate Period New Kingdom 3rd Intermediate Period Late Period Graeco-Roman Period 2600 BCE 2400 BCE 2200 BCE 2000 BCE 1800 BCE 1600 BCE 1400 BCE 1200 BCE 1000 BCE 800 BCE 600 BCE 400 BCE 200 BCE 0 CE 200 CE 0.00 % 0.05 % 0.10 % 0.15 % 0.20 % 0.25 % 0.30 % 0.35 % 0.40 % 0.45 % % mꜣꜣ — to see; to look 66270 · 2,848 tokens ptr — to see; to behold 62900 · 560 tokens
Figure 2: The same two verbs in relative mode.

The tool

Attestation density in the TLA takes one or more lemma numbers, separated by commas, and draws them in one frame. Demotic lemmata carry a leading d; since the TLA keeps two lemma lists, linked entries can be merged to follow a word across the change of script.

Attestation density of zꜣ over time, as a share of the year's evidence. Early Dynastic Period Old Kingdom 1st Intermediate Period Middle Kingdom 2nd Intermediate Period New Kingdom 3rd Intermediate Period Late Period Graeco-Roman Period 2600 BCE 2400 BCE 2200 BCE 2000 BCE 1800 BCE 1600 BCE 1400 BCE 1200 BCE 1000 BCE 800 BCE 600 BCE 400 BCE 200 BCE 0 CE 200 CE 0.00 % 0.20 % 0.40 % 0.60 % 0.80 % 1.0 % 1.2 % 1.4 % 1.6 % 1.8 % % zꜣ — son 125510 · 4,667 tokens
Figure 3: zꜣ “son” in relative mode, from the hieroglyphic lemma list alone.
Attestation density of zꜣ over time, as a share of the year's evidence, with the linked Demotic entries merged in. Early Dynastic Period Old Kingdom 1st Intermediate Period Middle Kingdom 2nd Intermediate Period New Kingdom 3rd Intermediate Period Late Period Graeco-Roman Period 2600 BCE 2400 BCE 2200 BCE 2000 BCE 1800 BCE 1600 BCE 1400 BCE 1200 BCE 1000 BCE 800 BCE 600 BCE 400 BCE 200 BCE 0 CE 200 CE 400 CE 0.00 % 1.0 % 2.0 % 3.0 % 4.0 % 5.0 % 6.0 % 7.0 % % zꜣ — son 125510 · 8,765 tokens · with d4968
Figure 4: The same lemma with the linked Demotic entry merged in.

Built from the TLA raw data, corpus issue v20. The underlying index holds, per lemma, the dating intervals of the texts it occurs in with a token count, aggregated and without text identifiers.