Corpus Inscriptionum Semiticarum

Renan justified the fourteen-year delay in the preface to the volume, pointing to the calamity of the Franco-Prussian war and the difficulties that arose in the printing the Phoenician characters, whose first engraving was proven incorrect in light of the inscriptions discovered subsequently.

The project began on April 17, 1867 when the French Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres accepted the proposal of a commission led by Ernest Renan to begin an initiative similar to German corpora of ancient Latin and Greek Corpus Inscriptionum Graecarum (CIG), and Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum (CIL).

[5] It was to include all known inscriptions, engraved stones, coins and papyri, along with selected specimens of particularly important later manuscripts.

Within each part it was to be subdivided based on geographic location:[7] The Répertoire d'Épigraphie Sémitique (abbreviated RES) published inscriptions during intermediate periods.

Edited by Eugène-Melchior de Vogüé, this series began publication in 1889, covering the territory of the ancient Syrian kingdoms, as well as all the countries where Aramaic penetrated under the Persian empire, from Anatolia to the India, from the Caspian to Upper Egypt.

[8] Part V. Saracen, Lihyan, Safaitic and Thamudic; this series was not published until 1950, by Gonzague Ryckmans[10] List of presidents of the "Commission du Corpus Inscriptionum Semiticarum":[11]