Current Epigraphy
ISSN: 1754-0909

Prof. Lidio Gasperini (Università di Roma II) passed away last Friday after surgical procedure in a Rome hospital.
Here is an  early obituary with some details.

Slightly delayed (the Global Crisis has also hit us), the Archivo Epigráfico de Hispania (Universidad Complutense de Madrid) announces a new issue of Hispania Epigraphica (ISSN 1132-6875), a cooperative effort of several Spanish and Portuguese scholars who list and comment new epigraphic finding and bibliography from Roman Spain.

The serial’s 14th annual issue (2008) deals with inscriptions published during the year 2005, although it also includes some selected pieces published in following years. This issue contains 462 references to new or revised inscriptions (mostly Latin but also some written in Greek and in several Paleohispanic languages), sorted by modern place of finding; in total, 51 documents from Portugal and 411 from Spain, to which the editors often add comments, amends or further bibliography.

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This is the new URL for HEpOl databank:

www.eda-bea.es

Nevertheless, the older one (http://www.ubi-erat-lupa.austrogate.at/hispep/public/index.php) will remain active meanwhile migration from one to other system is in progress and to allow time for testing data completeness and the new features.

The move was made for several reason: to facilitate a more mnemonic address,  to highlight several non-apparent upgrades (migrating from a Windows-based server to UNIX, for instance) and to unify the URL with those  used by the EAGLE consortium, in which HEpOl is now a full partner.

In line with this, notice the new common search routine for all EAGLE’s databases at this gateway:

http://cisadu4a.let.uniroma1.it/eagle1/Italiano/portale3.htm

A PDF version of the last published issue of Hispania Epigraphica (13, 2007) is now available for free download at the UCM’s Journals server . The issue covers years 2003-2004.

Inés Sastre and her colleagues from the CSIC (the Spanish National Research Council) have circulated the announcement of the discovery of a new bronze tessera hospitalitis dated by the consuls of 27 A.D. The piece was dug up some months ago during archaeological work in a small settlement beside a gold mine close to Pino del Oro, Zamora, where only two unconnected fragments with parts of the dating and the pact were found. The agreement deals with the renewal of [hospitium], amicitia and isopoliteia between an ignotum and the civitas Bletisama.

Inés also tells that a full study of the document will be shortly published in ZPE; meanwhile, she sent this booklet from which I am extracting this information:

• Inés Sastre, Alejandro Beltrán, Fco. Javier Sánchez Palencia, Damián Romero, El bronce de El Picón - Pino de Oro, Zamora. Madrid 2009 [ISBN 978-84-00-08761-6].

She also has called for a one-day meeting to be held in her institute in Madrid on April 1st to discuss the new find. For more information, write her or Alejandro Beltrán.

Prof. Juan M. Abascal (U. of Alicante) has made of his personal website a gateway to several useful resources for epigraphers:

• A direct access to the Museo Virtual de Segobriga, the website of this important archaeological site in Central Spain, offering several views of the city’s main monuments (like this one on the forum) and a catalogue of the artefacts found during more than a century of archaeological explorations; the database includes about 15000 records and 5000 photos, among them those containing description, bibliography and images of near 600 inscriptions like this one. Other links point to teaching materials (in Spanish), a complete bibliography and other scholarly stuff related to Segobriga, many of them offering downloadable complete text versions of books and papers.
• El anaquel de Spantamicus, a sort of personal library with references to several scholars’ work, mostly on Spanish topics (Alföldy, Blázquez, Fita, García y Bellido, himself, Le Roux, Stylow, Tovar, et cet.); many of the citations deals with epigraphical matter and there are downloadable complete versions of the  original printed pieces.
• Abascal’s own actual research, like this listing of digitalized works on José Córnide, a Spanish XVIII century traveller with a kind eye for ancient monuments and inscriptions.

A new textbook (in Spanish) on Epigraphy  under Dr. Andreu’s editorial  direction  has just came out.

More information on the publisher’s website.

Prof. Alicia Canto directed my attention to this inscription found during archaeological work in the roman theatre of Gades, which is commonly dated in the first Century B.C. (For information on the building’s remains and its situation in Cádiz, see this post).

The  graffito is cut in a block (ca. 80 x 15 cm) from the theatre’s subsellia, where it was set upside down so the letters remained out of sight. The editors believe this was due to the inscription insulting purpose: Latro, Balbe!

I find compelling both the graffito and the editors’ reading; the former because of its down-to-earth flavour, so common in Roman graffiti; and the latter because I  would rather read  BAE(BIVS) instead of  BAL(B)E.