Tommaso Gramigni writes to alert us to the publication of a catalogue of medieval inscriptions from Florence and its surroundings, which derives from his PhD research at University of Florence. It is presently openly available online (PDF) and will soon appear in print from Firenze University Press: Iscrizioni medievali nel territorio fiorentino fino al XIII secolo.
Tommaso also alerts us to his blog, Epigrafia Medievale.
From Stephen Mitchell:
The 14th International Epigraphy Congress (www.congressus2012.de) fittingly marked the continued importance of Berlin as a major center of epigraphic scholarship. The introductory lecture, given by Professor Stefan Rebenich (University of Bern), traced the history of the two major long-term epigraphic projects, Inscriptiones Graecae and Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, from the first origins at the beginning of the nineteenth century through extraordinary political and economic changes until their present thriving state in the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences. This presentation underlined the combination of vision, professionalism and persistence required to sustain these huge projects at the highest quality through generations of scholarship. The final lecture of the Congress, given by Professor Jürgen Hammerstaedt (Universty of Köln), traced the discovery and publication of the longest of all known Greek epigraphic monuments, the philosophical inscriptions of Diogenes of Oinoanda, with special emphasis on the work which was initiated by Martin Smith in the 1980s, and has now been given a major new impetus by the German Archaeological Institute at Istanbul and Professor Hammerstaedt’s collaboration. The lecture also offered a remarkable illustration of the Congress’s main theme, summed up in the words PUBLICUM – MONUMENTUM – TEXTUS (Display, Monument and Text). Contributors to the plenary sessions in particular were asked to use these key concepts as a guide to the interpretation of inscriptions in different public contexts: the transformation of civic cultures; the confrontation and combination of different languages within a shared epigraphic culture; inscriptions in rural contexts; and the epigraphy of public entertainment. The plenary lectures will form the main content of the published record of the Congress, which should appear within two years. Many of the thematic panels were designed to emphasise the same ideas. These will be published in summary form.
The Congress was organised on behalf of the Association Internationale d’Épigraphie Grecque et Latine (AIEGL), which held its general assembly during the week. Unfortunately, as had also happened at the Oxford Congress in 2007, attendance at this meeting fell just below the high quorum that the AIEGL constitution requires to complete elections of officers and comité members for the next quinquennium, and so the vote will have to be completed, probably by a secure on-line process, in the next 4-6 weeks. AIEGL membership itself had risen from 325 to 395 paying members since the last Congress. One important resolution was reached by consensus, that the 15th Congress in 2017 will be held in another major epigraphic centre, Vienna.
Stephen Mitchell
AIEGL President
From Stephen Mitchell:
The British Institute at Ankara has published two new fascicles of David French’s Corpus of the Milestones of Roman Asia Minor as PDF files on the Internet, from which they can be downloaded without charge. They are available on the web-site of the BIAA (Home page: http://www.biaa.ac.uk/home). RRMAM 3.1 (63 pages) contains the Republican milestones from the province of Asia, RRMAM 3.2 (358 pages) the 132 milestones from the province of Galatia. The publications include not only the texts, concordances and other apparatus, but also schematic maps and abundant illustrations (http://www.biaa.ac.uk/home/index.phpoption=com_content&task=view&id=109&Itemid=51#RRMAM32). A fascicle with the texts from Cappadocia is due to be published shortly.
The Fourteenth International Congress of Greek and Latin Epigraphy opened last night in the great “Auditorium Maximum” of the Humboldt University in Berlin. The well-attended opening plenary session began with a series of welcoming remarks by Werner Eck (Chairman of the Organizing Committee), Stephen Mitchell (president of AIEGL), Jan-Hendrick Olbertz (President of Humboldt Univerity), Gunter Stock (President of the Berlin-Brandenburgischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, and Ortwin Dally (General Secretary of the Deutsches Archäologisches Institut).
The highlight of the session was an extended, scholarly narrative of the history of Greek and Latin epigraphic study in Berlin, delivered by Stefan Rebenich (Bern University) under the rubric “Berlin und die antike Epigrafik.” I learned much about the history of the discipline, and the formation and challenges faced over time by the great corpora (the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum and Inscriptiones Graecae). A key theme throughout Rebenich’s lecture was the effects of epigraphic study and scholarly community — negative at some periods, and positive at others — of national and international politics (and of politics both personal and institutional within the humanities).
This audience member, whose German experience lies almost wholly in the realm of reading and whose practice in same is rather rusty, greatly appreciated the model demonstrated by Prof. Eck and followed by Prof. Rebenich, of displaying the text of their remarks on-screen during the presentation.
The opening plenary was followed by a reception hosted by the publisher De Gruyter, which lasted well into the evening.
Mireille CORBIER, directeur de L’Année épigraphique (Paris), fait savoir que L’Année épigraphique 2009 (1838 notices, 876 pages dont 177 pages d’index) est parue en août 2012. Les commandes doivent être adressées aux Presses Universitaires de France : revues@puf.com
Mireille CORBIER, director of L’Année épigraphique (Paris), announces that L’Année épigraphique 2009 (containing 1838 entries, and 876 pages including 177 pages of index) was published in August, 2012, and is now available. Orders should be sent to Presses Universitaires de France at revues@puf.com
I recently became aware of the Поиск Изображений В Античном Искусстве and its English version, the Online Database of Ancient Art, which presently includes records and images for 82 inscriptions (an English version of the search results is also available).
Via a post on Manuel Ramírez Sánchez’s blog, we learn of the publication of Ficheiro Epigráfico 100 (pdf), which provides addenda et corrigenda to previously published inscriptions, as well as indices to fascicules 90-99.
The joint “Archaeology in Greek Online” database of the French and British schools at Athens provides for keyword searching of the archaeological reports contained therein. One of the keywords provided is “find type -> inscription”. A search today, to which I cannot link here because search results are not returned with corresponding URLs, turned up 269 reports so categorized. The search form may be found at http://chronique.efa.gr/index.php/fiches/search/.
The program for “The Materiality of Texts – placement, perception, presence” (24-26 September 2012) has been announced at http://www.dur.ac.uk/classics/events/upcoming_events/?eventno=12362.
The following program was sent in by Adrian Robu:
Nouvelles recherches sur les cités de la Mégaride et les fondations mégariennes du Pont-Euxin : Archéologie, Épigraphie, Histoire.
8-12 Juillet 2012, Mangalia (Roumanie)
colloque international organisé avec l’appui financier du CNCS-UEFISCDI (no du projet : PN-ID-WE-2012-4-008) et du Collège de France
Arrivée des participants
0900-0915 Allocutions d’ouverture
0915-0930 Adrian Robu, Iulian Bîrzescu, Introduction au colloque
Modérateur : Alexandru Avram
0930-1045
1130-1245
1315-1430 Dejeuner
Modérateur : Iulian Bîrzescu
1430-154 5
1630-1745
1815-2000 Visite du Musée d’archéologie Callatis, Mangalia
2030 Dîner
Modérateur : Victor Cojocaru
0900-1015
1100-1215
1300-1430 Dejeuner
Modérateur : Denis Knoepfler
1430-1525
1630-1745
1830-1855 Alexandru Avram, Conclusions
2030 Dîner
0930-1200 Visite des fouilles archéologiques d’Histria
1300-1500 Déjeuner
1530-1800 Visite du Musée d’histoire nationale et d’archéologie de Constantza
2030 Dîner
Départ des participants
Adrian Robu, adrianrobu@yahoo.com
Iulian Bîrzescu, iulian2@gmail.com
Hôtel Président, Salle des Colloques
Strada Teilor, nr. 6, 905500 Mangalia, Roumanie
Mireille Corbier writes to alert us to the publication of the following:
“L’écriture dans la maison romaine”, edited by Mireille CORBIER and Jean-Pierre GUILHEMBET, published by DE BOCCARD (11 rue de Médicis 75 006 PARIS). 426 pages. 193 illustrations. Price : 60 euros.
Through the global analysis of writing in the domestic space, this edited volume looks at all forms of a writing culture, from archeological or epigraphical traces to forms mentioned only in literary sources. It demonstrates the great variety of media, but also of types of writing that can be found in the domestic context. “Books,” archives, writing materials, everyday objects with inscriptions: all have been integrated into the field of research covered in the essays in this volume. The practices found in the Roman household that are catalogued here point to usages very different from our own in a world where the practice of writing, a privilege shared by a fraction of the population, had multiple functions. The twenty chapters in this volume highlight certain writing forms and usages and cannot claim to be exhaustive. Social pretension and a desire for social distinction, the construction of the family memory, the pleasure of “reading together,” a constant dialog with guests, the conservation and archiving of personal and professional documents, apprenticeship in relations of authority, the written expression of vota and respects paid to the genius of the pater familias and to the domestic Lares, affirmation of the self by the writing of personal messages: all are part of the domestic writing culture analyzed here. The household is a space placed under the authority of masters, where domestic cults are practiced, where the family’s children and young slaves benefit from a variety of acculturating experiences: the hierarchy of behaviors expected of all the domestic actors, but also the practice of reading and writing. The households of magistrates and men exercising a profession were first and foremost places and instruments of their professional activities, and only afterwards spaces of representation and conviviality.
This volume is the product of an international colloquium organized by “L’Année épigraphique” group of the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique and brings together articles written by twenty-one historians, archaeologists, and philologists from seven different countries (France, Great Britain, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, the United States, and Tunisia). The authors are specialists of the ancient Mediterranean world and offer their contributions as possible avenues for comparative research with other historical periods and societies. They are asking questions about writing practices and levels of literacy in Roman society, about the relations between text and image and the culture that lies behind them, about the relations between the written and the oral and the dialog between the inner self and the public self, about the diversity of graphical forms and what they reveal about the ability to read and to write.
The American School of Classical Studies at Athens has announced the publication of The Athenian Agora XVIII: Inscriptions: The Dedicatory Monuments, by Daniel J. Geagan. Additional information is available on the ASCSA website. Andrew Reinhard, who sent me this notice, has also published a blog post on the book, with an emphasis on John Traill’s work on the volume following Geagan’s death.
On January 7, 2012 at the joint annual meetings of the American Philological Association and the Archaeological Institute of America, Garrett G. Fagan (Pennsylvania State University) presented a paper entitled “The Traveler’s Bill?” The paper considers a well-known inscription from Aesernia (modern Isernia in Italy) (EDR 079026 = EDH HD000649 with photo = CIL 9.2689 = ILS 7478).
Although the text begins with a common funerary formula (vivus fecit), Fagan argues against accepting it as an irreverent sepulchral inscription. Rather, he would see a humorous commercial sign for an inn. As evidence, Fagan considers the illustration, the possibility of reading personal names as puns (L. Calidius Eroticus et Fannia Voluptatis = Lucius Hotstuff Lover and Fannia Fuck), and a common literary and visual trope of associating enjoyment and relaxation with death and the brevity of life. Fagan notes that the stone is thin enough (31 cm) to have been fitted into a wall or over a lintel. For comparison, Fagan introduces EDR 030788 = CIL 6.10036(1) — a shop sign from Rome possibly depicting prostitutes for an establishment named “sorores IIII” (the four sisters).
On noon on February 15th, 2012, John Hessler will be giving a lecture entitled “Written in Stone: Roman law, Legal Epigraphy and the Geography of Roman Agriculture” in the Madison Building, LM-240, Multimedia Room of the US Library of Congress. He provides the following details:
The middle of the Bagradas vallley is located southwest of Carthage, between roughly sixty and eighty kilometers from the northern Mediterranean coast, in the region of northern Tunisia known as the Tell interieur. The term Tell designates those areas in Algeria and Tunisia subject to a Mediterranean climate, that is, to at least 400 mm of rainfall each year, sufficient to allow the cultivation of grain and olives without irrigation. The area has been an agricultural zone for thousands of years, and most intensively, with the escalation of Roman agriculture in period between 100 and 500 AD.
Within the region are found many of the most important legal inscriptions relating to the practice of agriculture and tenant farming, all of which provide a window into the how land and estates were managed and how tenant farmers made a living during this time of rapid growth in the Roman population. Inscriptions such as those found at Henchir-Mettich and Souk-el-Khmis provide us with information about the legal system under which this agriculture operated, and also, and perhaps more importantly, gives us hints into the geography and extent of Roman agriculture in North Africa when it was the ‘bread basket’ of the empire.
In this talk will Hessler will discuss his travels in Tunisia and Algeria in search of these and other legal inscriptions, and also talk about what these seemingly dry fragments of Roman law tell us about how the Romans managed their estates and environment, and how sharecroppers took advantage of the Roman system of petition and response to maintain their rights to the land.
A poster version of the above, in PDF format, is attached: Hessler 2012 Lecture.
Mireille Corbier, director of L’Année épigraphique (Paris, corbier@msh-paris.fr), writes to announce that L’Année épigraphique 2008 (containing 1,770 entries and 960 pages, including 210 pages of index) was published in August, 2011, and is now available. Orders should be sent to Presses Universitaires de France at revues@puf.com.
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