The booming digital world of cuneiform scholarship offers up an immense range of new opportunities for binding together and exploiting linked data structures across a wide range of data repositories. A fundamental prerequisite for the further integration of primary data collections is the definition of - and widespread adherence to - standardised entity definitions and vocabularies for basic catalogue metadata. Even if digital catalogues for inscribed artefacts may, for institutional, intellectual, or scholarly reasons, remain structurally autonomous also in the future, building primary data collections with an attentive eye towards the linking with and integration of external resources will work to enhance the broader impact and relevance of research data going forward. The present paper proposes a minimalist best practice outline for the alignment of basic metadata entities and associated vocabularies in cuneiform studies, drawing on multiple workshops hosted by the Geomapping Landscapes of Writing (GLoW) project at Uppsala University, as well as extensive surveys of primary data repositories in the field. Our perspective is guided by ontologies, concepts, and categories employed with current digital catalogues and existing open access reference indices capable of furthering increased data standardisation and mapping. Focusing on the standardisation and integration of basic metadata for the geographical, chronological, and biblio- graphical context of primary inscribed artefact catalogues, this talk identifies and discusses a variety of issues with the definition, mapping, and linking of basic metadata entities. We proceed to present an open access set of guidelines for the proper mapping and linking of said metadata entities, drawing on indices from the Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative and Wikidata, among others. This resource will be of interest to current and prospective users and editors of digital inscribed artefact catalogues within the field of cuneiformstudies, and input on its further augmentation and refinement is much welcomed.