Current Epigraphy
ISSN: 1754-0909

Two reviews from BMCR that I’ve been sitting on for a while, far too busy with the EpiDoc Summer School to read and report on here:

(1) BMCR 2008.07.09: Marilynne E. Raybould, Patrick Sims-Williams, A Corpus of Latin Inscriptions of the Roman Empire Containing Celtic Personal Names. Aberystwyth: CMCS Publications, 2007. Pp. vi, 283; b/w ills. 2. ISBN 978-0-9527478-7-1. £18.00 and Marilynne E. Raybould , Patrick Sims-Williams, The Geography of Celtic Personal Names in the Latin Inscriptions of the Roman Empire. Aberystwyth: CMCS Publications, 2007. Pp. i, 210; b/w ills. 3. ISBN 978-0-9527478-6-4. £19.99. Reviewed by Philip Freeman, Luther College.

Freeman offers a very brief, summary review of these texts (the first a corpus of 800+ inscriptions, the second a geographical companion volume), partly justifying his brevity with the final comment:

Since it is not the intention of either of these volumes to offer a linguistic analysis of, an argument about, or any discussion of the Celtic names they contain, there is little to debate in them aside from whether or not a particular name is genuinely Celtic. I believe Raybould and Sims-Williams on the whole have adopted an admirably minimalist standard in rejecting questionable names and including only those with a defensible Celtic etymology. Scholars without a background in Celtic linguistics may find the volumes frustrating in their lack of explanation of name meanings and cognates, such as brog (”territory” — Old Irish mruig, Welsh bro, Latin margo) and mara (”great” — Old Irish mór, Welsh mawr), but these are easily available in standard etymological dictionaries. Others whose interests include the Celtic lands to the east of the Bosporus will lament the exclusion of many revealing Galatian names from these works. Nevertheless, the authors have provided scholars of the ethnic makeup of the Roman Empire an admirable and much-needed tool for exploring the distribution of Celtic names throughout Roman Europe.

(2) BMCR 2008.07.25: Pantelis Nigdelis, Epigraphika Thessalonikeia, Symvole sten politike kai koinonike historia tes archaias Thessalonikes. Thessaloniki: University Studio Press, 2006. Pp. 646. ISBN 960-12-1550-6. €40.00. Reviewed by Paraskevi Martzavou, École Pratique des Hautes Études, IVème Section, Paris.

Martzavou gives a detailed and engaged summary of this volume of 140 inscriptions, a selection of those of most historical and geographical interest from the forthcoming IG volume on Thessalonika, particularly the more recent discoveries. As a final summary M. notes:

N. écrit dans un grec moderne extrêmement précis et clair, les références sont fouillées et à jour. Signalons seulement une petite inadvertence: à la p. 478, le donateur de l’inscription IG X, 2, 1 no 259 n’est pas une prêtresse de Dionysos mais un certain Iulius Bessartes. Il convient aussi de dire au passsage que cet ouvrage est caractérisé par la clémence des jugements sur les tentatives malheureuses de suppléer aux lacunes du matériel épigraphique. Ce volume ne sera pas intéressant seulement pour quelques spécialistes mais sera précieux pour les historiens de l’empire romain plus généralement.

Conference announcement:

Inscriptions and their Uses in Ancient Literature: a conference
Department of Classics and Ancient History
University of Manchester
June 25-26, 2009

This conference aims to explore the possibilities which the literary record of ancient inscriptions offer both to those interested in understanding ancient attitudes towards inscriptions and to those interested in exploring the broader relationship (and overlaps) between epigraphical and non-epigraphical modes of expression from a range of literary, historical and epigraphical angles.

Confirmed speakers include J. K. Davies, Damien Nelis and Jocelyn Nelis-Clement, Matthias Haake, Michael Squire, Julia Lougovaya, Andrej Petrovic, Martin Dinter, Yannis Tzifopoulos, Andrew Morrison and David Fearn.

We are also inviting offers of papers on themes which we consider central to this subject:

1. The deployment of epigraphy (real, hypothetical or imaginary) or epigraphic language in particular authors or genres.
2. The reception of inscribed documents (individual documents or types of document) in literary texts.
3. The inscribing of already-circulated literary texts on permanent media.
4. The relationship of ‘inscribed documents’ to ‘uninscribed documents’ in literary texts.

The deadline for titles and abstracts (of 300 words) is 15th August, 2008. All enquiries and offers of papers should be sent to the conference organisers, Polly Low (polly.low@manchester.ac.uk) or Peter Liddel (Peter.liddel@manchester.ac.uk).

Reviewed in BMCR 2008.06.28:

Silvia Orlandi, Epigrafia anfiteatrale dell’occidente romano. VI. Roma. Anfiteatri e strutture annesse con una nuova edizione e commento delle iscrizioni del Colosseo. Vetera, 15. Roma: Quasar, 2004. Pp. 600; pls. 28. ISBN 978-88-7140-265-9. €84.00 (pb).

Reviewed by R.T. Scott, Bryn Mawr College (dscott@brynmawr.edu)
Word count: 833 words

Scott provides a short but glowing review of this volume of over 300 texts, focussing on the subtleties and historical focus of the study. The review ends with the words:

Orlandi’s teacher, Silvio Panciera, is fond of reminding his students that the real task of the epigraphist is to study not inscriptions but the world that has created them. In this splendid and authoritative volume Silvia Orlandi has done just this with great credit to him and to the memory of Patrizia Sabbatini Tumolesi.

Just seen this announcement for a conference at the University of Lausanne titled “Inscriptions mineures: nouveautés et réflexions”, to be held June 19-20, 2008, as part of the Ductus project: Association internationale pour l’étude des inscriptions mineures.

Pour mettre en place la structure de l’association [Ductus], une assemblée générale constitutive est organisée lors du colloque qui verra la constitution de Ductus. Il se tiendra les 19-20 juin 2008 à l’Université de Lausanne. Le thème de la manifestation sera : « Inscriptions mineures : nouveautés et réflexions ».

Full information and programme are online at the Ductus website at: http://www.unil.ch/ductus/.

Available for review from BMCR 2008.05.02 (titles of possible interest to epigraphers):

Bernabé Pajares, Alberto and Ana Isabel Jiménez San Cristóbal. Instructions for the netherworld: the Orphic gold tablets. Religions in the Graeco-Roman world, v. 162. Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2008. xii, 379 p. $188.00. ISBN 9789004163713.

Kruschwitz, Peter (ed.). Die metrische Inschriften der roemischen Republik. Berlin; New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2007. x, 397 p. $145.00. ISBN 9783110184839.

*Petrovic, Andrej. Kommentar zu den simonideischen Versinschriften. Mnemosyne, bibliotheca classica Batava. Supplementum, 282. Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2007. xv, 345 p. $134.00. ISBN 9789004151536.

Tsagalis, Christos C. Inscribing sorrow: fourth-century Attic funerary epigrams. Trends in Classics - Supplementary Volumes v. 1. Berlin; New York: Walter De Gruyter, 2008. xiv, 368 p. $118.00. ISBN 9783110201321.

The following titles from the Digital Classicist Work-in-Progress seminars are of potential interest to epigraphers:

6 June (NG16): Elaine Matthews and Sebastian Rahtz (Oxford), The Lexicon of Greek Personal Names and classical web services

13 June (NG16) Brent Seales (University of Kentucky), EDUCE: Non-invasive scanning for classical materials

20 June (STB3) Dot Porter (University of Kentucky), The Son of Suda On Line: a next generation collaborative editing tool

18 July (STB3) Ryan Bauman (University of Kentucky), Towards the Digital Squeeze: 3-D imaging of inscriptions and curse tablets

25 July (NG16) Charlotte Tupman (KCL), Markup of the epigraphy and archaeology of Roman Libya

8 Aug (NG16) Charlotte Roueché (KCL), From Stone to Byte

Yesterday Mark Liberman over at the Language Log posted a short comparison of abbreviations in ancient Latin inscriptions, and the shorthand comminly used (and much reviled) in text-messaging and instant-messaging today (article titled “pont max tr pot lol“).

While this article is light-hearted and only skims the surface of issues such as space saving, the ability of a fluent community to understand abbreviated jargon, and the potential ambiguity of messages sent in this way, there may be a serious point in all this. Is there value in the comparison with other cultures of condensed writing (including but not restricted to text messaging and 1337-speak) as a tool in the teaching and the study of epigraphic and palaeographic abbreviation?

Why do ancient scribes abbreviate? Is there any evidence that abbreviation ever led to ambiguity and misunderstanding of important documents? Is epigraphic abbreviation a completely different phenomenon from digital shorthand, or is there something to be learned from comparisons of this kind–or contrasts?

(Thanks to JLavagnino for pointing out this web log.)

The Centre for Computing in the Humanties, Kings College London, is again offering an EpiDoc Summer School, on July 14th-18th, 2008. The training is designed for epigraphers or papyrologists (or related text editors such as numismatists, sigillographers, etc.) who would like to learn the skills and tools required to mark up ancient documents for publication (online or on paper), and interchange with international academic standards.

You can learn more about EpiDoc from the EpiDoc home page and the Introduction for Epigraphers; you wil find a recent and user-friendly article on the subject in the Digital Medievalist. (If you want to go further, you can learn about XML and about the principles of the TEI: Text Encoding Initiative.) The Summer School will not expect any technical expertise, and training in basic XML will be provided.
Attendees (who should be familiar with Greek/Latin and the Leiden Conventions) will need to bring a laptop on which has been installed the Oxygen XML editor (available at a reduced academic price, or for a free 30-day demo).

The EpiDoc Summer School is free to participants; we can try to help you find cheap (student) accommodation in London. If any students participating would like to stay on afterwards and acquire some hands-on experience marking up some texts for the Inscriptions of Roman Cyrenaica project, they would be most welcome!

All interested please contact both charlotte.roueche@kcl.ac.uk and gabriel.bodard@kcl.ac.uk as soon as possible. Please pass on this message to anyone who you think might benefit.

Announced via email from AIEGL:

Congreso: “La construcción de una identidad provincial. La experiencia hispana”

(Sevilla, 8 al 10 de mayo de 2008)

Speakers Include:

A. Caballos; P. LeRoux; F. Pini Polo; M. Navarro Caballero; S. Lefebvre; S. Marcos; F. J. Navarro Santana; R. Haensch; M. Gordón Peral; E. Melchor Gil; C. Chic García; A. Dardenay; A. A. Reyes Domínguez; M. Heinzmann; J. C. Saquete Chamizo; L. Brassous; F. Wulff Alonso; F. Beltrán Lloris.

Organisers:

Prof. Dr. A. Caballos Rufino, Catedrático de Historia Antigua, Universidad de Sevilla

Profª. Drª. S. Lefebvre, Professeur d’Histoire romaine, Université de Bourgogne

Unfortunately there seems to be no website associated with this conference (nor email addresses for the organisers) in the PDF programme that was circulated.

If anyone attends this conference (or any other event of interest to epigraphers) we should be very grateful for a short report posted here.

Practical Epigraphy Workshop

24-26^th June 2008

Yorkshire Museum, York

The British Epigraphy Society is pleased to announce a second Practical Epigraphy Workshop in York for those interested in developing hands-on skills in working with epigraphic material. With expert tuition, participants will gain direct experience of the practical elements of how to record and study inscriptions. The programme includes the making of squeezes; photographing and measuring inscribed stones; and the production of transcriptions, translations and commentaries. Participants may choose to work on Latin or Greek texts, and the workshop is open to those with or without previous epigraphic training. Booking fees for attending the workshop are £28 for students and £38 for non-students.

Postgraduate students may apply for bursaries of up to 100 pounds to set against the costs of attending the workshop.

For further information and an application form please contact Dr. Charlotte Tupman at: charlotte.tupman@kcl.ac.uk. The closing date for applications is Friday 16 May.

Call for Papers: Ancient Graffiti in Context

Workshop: School of Archaeology & Ancient History, University of Leicester

November 8, 2008

This workshop will examine the spatial and social context of graffiti in the Greek and Roman worlds. Graffiti has been marginalised in archaeological and historical studies, published in distinct volumes or seen as a curiosity. There are few theoretical studies of ancient graffiti or its interpretation, and little reflection on how we – as scholars – categorise this material.

New questions now need to be asked: How do we negotiate the relationship between text and image? What can we say about the materiality of textual graffiti? What social processes or practices produce graffiti? To what extent does graffiti represent or subvert the cultural values of the society in which it occurs? By bringing together examples and approaches from across the discipline we hope to develop a better understanding of graffiti and what it can contribute to bigger questions about the ancient world.

Potential speakers, including postgraduates, are encouraged to submit abstracts of c.300 words by email to the organisers by May 31st, 2008.

For more information, contact:
Dr Claire Taylor, Department of Classics, Trinity College Dublin claire.taylor@tcd.ie

Dr Jennifer Baird, School of Archaeology and Ancient History, University of
Leicester jb188@le.ac.uk

Epigraphy North, Tuesday 15th April 2008, 5.30 pm

Professor Onno Van Nijf
‘Public space and political culture in Roman Termessos’

Bosanquet Seminar Room, 12-14 Abercromby Square, The University of Liverpool

The Epigraphy North series is suitable also for students wishing to learn about epigraphy; if individuals need further information on travelling to Liverpool and accommodation if attending the seminar, please contact Graham Oliver (gjoliver@liv.ac.uk).

If anybody is planning on attending this seminar (or any other, e.g. the BES meeting mentioned earlier) it would be much appreciated if they could post a brief summary of the paper here.

British Epigraphy Society

Spring Meeting, Saturday 3 May 2008

Department of Classics & Ancient History, 38 North Bailey, Durham

Religion and politics in Greek and Roman epigraphy in Greece and the Eastern Mediterranean

Main speakers & topics include:

• Professor P.J. Rhodes (Durham)
  State and religion in Athenian inscriptions
• Professor Maurice Sartre (Tours)
  La politique religieuse des cités de Syrie: la constitution des panthéons civiques à l’époque impériale
• Dr Margherita Facella (Pisa)
  On the chronology of IG II2 207
• Dr Francesco Guizzi (Rome, ‘La Sapienza’)
  The imperial cult in Hierapolis of Phrygia: old and new evidence
• Dr Andrej Petrović & Dr Ivana Petrović (Durham)
  θεὸς νομοθέτης - Constructions of divine authority in Greek sacred regulations

Conveners: Dr Paola Ceccarelli (paola.ceccarelli@durham.ac.uk), Dr Ted Kaizer (ted.kaizer@durham.ac.uk)

Henrik Mouritsen has sent me a summary of his paper given at the Cambridge Epigraphy Day in February, which I post below:

Henrik Mouritsen (King’s College London) discussed the possibility of quantifying Roman manumission using epigraphic evidence. While acknowledging that most inscriptions are of little help in establishing hard statistics in this area, he drew attention to two types of document which may provide more reliable information. The first are the epitaphs of the familial columbaria from the early empire, esp. those of the Statilii and the Volusii, where the ratio of slave to freed suggests a very high manumission rate in elite households. The second type is the municipal alba and particularly CIL X 1403 from Herculaneum. This inscription, long believed to contain the names of the Augustales, is unique in its scale. Even a cautious reconstruction of the fragments entails a total of around a thousand names, the large majority being those of local freedmen, which–given the overall size of Herculaneum’s population–would suggest that a substantial proportion of the free adult males were former slaves.