Begun in 1897 as a research project at the Prussian Academy of Sciences in Berlin, the dictionary is also known as the "Berlin Dictionary". Interrupted by both World War I and World War II, the first volumes were published in 1926 and the final volume released in 1961. Today the dictionary forms the basis of the new Altägyptisches Wörterbuch (Dictionary of Ancient Egyptian), a comprehensive update of the original and an online digitization project being conducted under the auspices of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities since 1993.[3]