OB Freie

Old Babylonian Freie - A font made for the Institut für Altorientalistik at Freie Universität Berlin, based on aBZL.

The current version is 2.0.0 (November 2024) See CHANGELOG.md for the history of updates. Currently available formats for OB Freie are: ttf, otf Additionally OBNL (Old Babylonian No Latin) - a version without Latin characters - is available as: ttf, otf, woff2, svg

Warning

For now the font is optimised for the 'Light' weight. The 'Regular' and 'Bold' weights were derived through algorithms from the 'Light' weight. Hence they are considered 'experimental'. Yet in print at sizes such as 12pt you might find 'Regular' more readable than 'Light' without much loss in detail. Until the redraw is completed some signs will be unusable in print at large sizes (i.e. for posters), this effect is worse in 'Regular' and 'Light'.

Quick Guide

Follow this link to download the latest version or navigate to the releases page to select a different version.

Extract the archive and double-click the .otf file to open your system’s native font installation dialog. Follow the on-screen instructions. You might prefer to install the .ttf file instead to ensure the broadest compatibility.

(Note: You may need to restart Microsoft Office programs for the fonts to load correctly.)

For writing Cuneiform Characters I would advise to use the Enmerkar Keylayout by Robin Leroy or if that doesn't work on your system NesiliKeys by Rolf Noyer.

SVGs

The svg files are automatically named to their respective Unicode codepoints. Signs that from the ss01 or the liga table have the table's name appended. Unlike the font itself the vectorgraphics are licensed through CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. The vectorgraphics until 1.5 are generated automatically and do not get checked individually by me. As I assume their use to be limited, until I find time to fully redraw all of them.

Citation

BibTeX

@misc{Ziegeler2024,
  author       = {Ziegeler, Corvin R.},
  year         = {2024},
  title        = {Old Babylonian Freie},
  howpublished = {http://dx.doi.org/10.17169/refubium-44983},
}

APA

Ziegeler, C. R. (2024). Old Babylonian Freie. http://dx.doi.org/10.17169/refubium-44983

Licensing

The OB Freie font © 2023 is licensed under the SIL OPEN FONT LICENSE Version 1.1.

The SVGs for Old Babylonian Freie © 2023 by Corvin Ziegeler are licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0.