Current Epigraphy
ISSN: 1754-0909

Manuel Ramírez reports on the publication of Cultura Escrita & Sociedad vol. 9 2009, entitled Epigrafía y cultura escrita en la Antigüedad clásica.

The following lecture (in New York) has just been announced:

Rediscovering the inscriptions of Campa (Vietnam)
Speaker: Arlo Griffiths
Location: 2nd Floor Lecture Room
Institute for the Study of the Ancient World
15 E 84th St
New York, NY
Date: Monday, March 8 2010
Time: 6:00 p.m.

The aim of this lecture is to inform the interested New York public on recent developments in the study of the written records of ancient ‘Indianized’ polities in Southeast Asia. We will take as example the epigraphic corpus of the ancient Campa kingdom(s), which lay in what is now central and southern Vietnam. The study of Campa epigraphy involves texts in Sanskrit and in the poorly known vernacular Old Cam language, which belongs to the Austronesian language family. This field of research once flourished in French colonial times, then all but died out after WW II, and has only recently been resuscitated from a coma that lasted for decades. Newly discovered inscriptions have started to be published again, and a census of Campa inscriptions was undertaken last September-October in museums and archaeological sites of Vietnam. The aim of the census was to up-date the general inventory of Campa inscriptions, whose last published installment dates to 1942, and to record essential data of previously known and newly discovered epigraphical documents. The presentation will discuss general aspects of Southeast Asian epigraphy, as well as specific aspects of the Campa corpus and the history of its study. Some new inscriptions, which throw interesting new light on the history of Campa and its place within the larger scale development of Southeast Asian history, will be selected for close inspection.

Arlo Griffiths holds a PhD in Sanskrit from Leiden University. After holding a position as lecturer in Indian Religions at the University of Groningen (the Netherlands), and holding the chair of Sanskrit at Leiden University, he joined the French School of Asian Studies (L’École française d’Extrême-Orient) in 2008 as Professor of Southeast Asian history. His main fields of interest are Hindu religious/ritual literature in Sanskrit, on the one hand, and inscriptions of Southeast Asia in Sanskrit and vernacular languages, on the other. His approach to the (ancient) history of Southeast Asia is primarily epigraphic, and he is currently involved in projects concerning the inscriptions of ancient Cambodia, ancient Indonesia, and Campa.

This afternoon, Chuck Jones alerts us to the re-appearance of the journal Τεκμήρια (ISSN 1106-661x).  It is now operating as “a peer reviewed open access journal” under the auspices of the Ινστιτούτο Eλληνικής και Pωμαϊκής Aρχαιότητος (Κ.Ε.Ρ.Α.). Back issues are available on the site (built with the Open Journal Systems publishing system), and in many cases the articles are available in page-scan PDFs and OCR’d PDFs. Information about the reconstituted journal and its submission and review policies are also available. The table of contents for the new issue (vol. 9 = 2008) is worth a look!

My congratulations to the editors and advisers is tempered only by two factors: the discovery that the OCR PDFs seem to employ a custom (non-unicode) font encoding, and a lack of clarity about copyright and license. The non-standard encoding constitutes an unfortunate choice that undermines long-term digital preservation. On the copyright front, the site lacks a clear statement of what the editors and the sponsoring organization mean by “open access”. Though copyright is asserted via a simple statement at the  bottom of each web page (”Copyright © EKT“), one misses an increasingly standard feature of “open-access” publications: a Creative Commons license (or other) statement indicating what users may (and may not) do with the material presented.

Chuck Jones has the details.

The preliminary program has just been posted for the August 2009 conference in Berlin of the Fédération internationale des Associations d’études classiques / International Federation of the Societies of Classical Studies. Among the panels listed there, we find one on the topic “Epigraphical Documents: Reflection of Reality or Construction of Historical Knowledge?”

I take the liberty of reproducing the list of speakers, with titles and links to abstracts in pdf:

Invited speakers:

Francisco Beltrán Lloris:
Angelos Matthaiou: Palmyra

zugelassene Bewerber in alphabetischer Reihenfolge:

Alejandr García González (Universidad de Valladolid, España)
Los ‘otros’ epitafios y dedicaciones greco-latinos: inversiones, burlas y parodias

Anja Knebusch (Berlin, Deutschland)
Die metrischen Inschriften Germaniens als Spiegelbild provinzieller Bildung

Aleksandr Koptev (Helsinki, Finlandl):
A possible lacuna in the Roman Fasti Consulares

Sophia Kravaritou (Archaeological Institute for Thessalian Studies, Greece):
Greek “Calendars”: ancient documents through modern consideration

Luca Maurizi (University of Helsinki, Finland)
Autorappresentazione senatoria nell’agorà di Atene e un nuovo proconsul Achaiae

Vladimir P. Petrovic (Académie Serbe des Sciences et des Arts, Serbia)
Les erreurs dans l’interpretation scientifique de Tabula Peutingeriana: L’emplacement de la station balnéaire de Aquae Bas sur la route Naissus-Lissus

Cecilia Ricci (Università del Molise, Italia)
Le coorti urbane: braccio armato del potere senatorio a Roma o polizia al servizio della città? Una riflessione

José Vela Tejada (Universidad de Zaragoza, España)
Koine Eirene and the Satraps’ Revolt in the Inscription of Argos (IG IV 556=SIG³ 182): Historical Reality or Panhellenical Propaganda?

Gustavo Veneciano (Universidad Nacional de Córdoba, Argentina)
La inscripción IvO 7

Update: I also notice the following papers of probable epigraphic interest listed in other sections:

Silvia Barbantani (Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore Milano, Italia)
The symbol of the spear in funerary or honorary epigrams/inscriptions for Ptolemaic philoi and soldiers

Rebecca R. Benefiel (Washington and Lee University, USA):
Pompeii and her Neighbors: ancient graffiti and civic identity

Danijela Stefanovic (Serbian Society for Ancient Studies, Serbia):
Roman Funerary Stelae from Egypt – An Overview

Jessica Piccinini (Wolfson College, University of Oxford, Great Britain)
Geographical provenance and social status of the customers of the oracle of Dodona

Judith Hallett (University of Maryland, College Park, USA) / Jacqueline Fabre-Serris (, Université de Lille, France):
AE 1928.73 (Epitaph of Petale Sulpicia) and Ovid, Tristia 3.7: Gender, Class and Roman Women’s Poetry

Michael Johnson (Davidson College, USA):
Mommsen lecture notes at Rutgers University

Burak Takmer (Akdeniz Üniversitesi Antalya, Turkey)
Lex Portorii Provinciae: Zollinschrift aus Andriake von neronischer Zeit

Lucia Criscuolo writes to alert us to the following event:

Seminario Avanzato di Epigrafia Greca

Bologna, 15-17 gennaio 2009
Novotel Bologna Fiera
via Michelino 73

Alma Mater Studiorum
Università di Bologna
Istituto di Studi Superiori

L’Istituto di Studi Superiori dell’Università di Bologna, che comprende l’Istituto di Studi Avanzati e il Collegio Superiore, organizza il primo SAEG, Seminario Avanzato di Epigrafia Greca.

Il Seminario è un’iniziativa volta innanzitutto a dottorandi, assegnisti e giovani ricercatori che intendano approfondire la propria formazione in tematiche relative alla disciplina epigrafica greca, allargare le proprie esperienze nel campo delle scienze storiche antiche o presentare eventualmente le proprie ricerche nel settore. L’occasione si prefigge inoltre di favorire un incontro tra studiosi, al fine di discutere in modo costruttivo il proprio lavoro scientifico e di confrontare i risultati delle ricerche in corso.

Per informazioni:

Lucia Criscuolo
Dipartimento di Storia Antica
Alma Mater Studiorum Università di Bologna
lucia.criscuolo@unibo.it

Alice Bencivenni
Dipartimento di Storia Antica
Alma Mater Studiorum Università di Bologna
alice.bencivenni2@unibo.it

[full program follows - TRE.]

(more…)

For some time I’ve been trying to follow the posting of photographs of epigraphic interest to Flickr, the photo-sharing website. Of particular interest (as previously discussed) are the groups Visibile Parlare – Visible Words (Latin) and Visibile Parlare – Visible Words (Greek). A search for the tag “inscription” is also interesting.

From time to time I think I shall highlight here items that catch my interest in these venues.

Consider a photograph posted by Sally Wilson (sallycat101) on 26 October 2008, labeled “inscribed stone, carthage.” The high resolution image of this cylindrical cippus shows only part of the text campus, for external circumstances explained by the photographer.

A little transcription and then searching in the epigraphic databases and we can find that this is a published text:

• CIL 8.22084 = ILTun 1732; registered in EDCS (photo), where we get a digital text as follows (I copy it here because there is no mechanism that I can find for direct linkage to individual records in EDCS); evidently not in EDH:

Imp(eratori) Caes(ari)
M(arco) Aurelio
Probo Pi-
o Felici Aug(usto)
pontifici
maximo
tribunici-
ae potesta-
[tis —

Which I’d translate as: “The Emperor Caesar Marcus Aurelius Probus Pius Felix Augustus, pontifex maximus, (holding the) tribunician power …” (the cippus is broken away from its base, destroying one or more additional lines of text).

It’s apparently a milestone (or boundary marker) of the Roman Emperor Probus (AD 276-282). There are a few other inscriptions of Probus cataloged in CIL and other corpora. Without the tribunician year or other indication of date (e.g., consular year), it may be impossible to date this particular inscription more closely.

I’m sure readers without present access to CIL or ILTun (like me) would be grateful for comments (posted here) about the context of this find (EDCS lists “Ain Ghar Salah” as the findspot), the road it may have been associated with, or other relevant matters.

Philip Schmitz writes:

I have been asked to prepare a chapter on the history of Phoenician-Punic epigraphy for a volume honoring an important contributor to the field. I would like to include details of human interest pertaining to significant scholars and discoveries. I have consulted Mark Smith’s wonderful survey of the Northwest Semitic field, and will incorporate relevant items from that work.

I am not much interested in personal foibles or idiosyncrasies of teachers and scholars except as such might have led to progress in the discovery, decipherment, critical edition, or interpretation of Phoenician and Punic inscriptions. More valuable would be instances of working method, the role of comprehensive cataloguing, notable cases of insight or intuition, and the like. Eyewitness accounts of text discoveries, personal or reported narratives about teaching and research methods, and reflection about how discoveries of texts have changed perceptions of ancient history and biblical studies are especially welcome.

The period I plan to cover begins with the seventeenth-century erudites and extends to the current generation. My focus will be on Phoenician and Punic, although that history is difficult to divide neatly from the rest of Northwest Semitic epigraphy or from Semitic studies at large. The earliest periods of the alphabet, significant as they are, are less germane to this study than the periods from Iron II to Roman. I am particularly concerned to identify critical moments and turning points in the field’s development. Hearing your perceptions of these would be immensely helpful as I review and revise my own understanding. I greatly appreciate any response you might wish to make to my request.

Sincerely,

Philip C. Schmitz
pschmitz@emich.edu
Professor of History
Department of History and Philosophy
Eastern Michigan University
Ypsilanti, MI 48197
USA

Silvia Orlandi has asked me to post notice of the following event:

Convegno EAGLE – Electronic Archive of Greek and Latin Epigraphy
Epigrafia, informatica e ricerca storica

L’Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei
Centro Interdisciplinare “Beniamino Segre”
Via della Lungara, 10 – 00165
Rome

7-8 November 2008

Program:

COMITATO ORDINATORE: François BERARD (F), Carlo CARLETTI (I), Kevin CLINTON (USA), Angela DONATI (I), Andrea GIARDINA (I), Joaquin GÓMEZ-PANTOJA (E), Gian Luca GREGORI (I), Tito ORLANDI (I), Silvio PANCIERA (I), Charlotte ROUECHÉ (UK), Christian WITSCHEL (D), Fausto ZEVI (I).
PARTECIPANTI: Antonella Daniela AGOSTINELLI (I), Géza ALFÖLDY (D), Giovanna ASDRUBALI PENTITI (I), Lucio BENEDETTI (I), François BERARD (F), Maria Letizia CALDELLI (I), Lorenzo CALVELLI (I), Giuseppe CAMODECA (I), Carlo CARLETTI (I), Marcella CHELOTTI (I), Laura CHIOFFI (I), Gemma CORAZZA (I), Giovannella CRESCI MARRONE (I), Antonella DE CARLO (I), Barbara DE NICOLÒ (I), Ginette DI VITA-EVRARD (F), Angela DONATI (I), Silvia EVANGELISTI (I), Lanfranco FABRIANI (I), Donato FASOLINI (I), Antonio Enrico FELLE (I), Francisca FERAUDI-GRUÉNAIS (D), Antoine GAILLIOT (F), Andrea GIARDINA (I), Joaquin GÓMEZ-PANTOJA (E), Maria Grazia GRANINO (I), Gian Luca GREGORI (I), Antonio IBBA (I), Nicolas LAUBRY (F), Marion LAMÉ (F), Fulvia MAINARDIS (I), Silvia Maria MARENGO (I), Giovanni MENNELLA (I), Guido MIGLIORATI (I), Ilaria MILANO (I), Silvia ORLANDI (I), Tito ORLANDI (I), Gianfranco PACI (I), Silvio PANCIERA (I), Viviana PETTIROSSI (I), Valentina PISTARINO (I), Anita ROCCO (I), Charlotte ROUECHÉ (UK), Antonio SARTORI (I), Kurt SCHALLER (E), John SCHEID (F), Marina SILVESTRINI (I), Maria Carla SPADONI (I), Nicolas TRAN (F), Stefania VALENTINI (I), Alfredo VALVO (I), Marina VAVASSORI (I), Christian WITSCHEL (D), Claudio ZACCARIA (I), Fausto ZEVI (I), Enrico ZUDDAS (I).

Avvertenza: il Convegno non prevede una lettura pubblica delle relazioni (i cui testi sono accessibili a tutti sul sito http://www.terraitalia.altervista.org), ma solo un dibattito generale intorno alle stesse ed ai temi da queste trattati, aperto a tutti i partecipanti, iscritti o no.

Venerdì 7 novembre
14.00 Indirizzi di saluto
14.15 Silvio Panciera, EAGLE: perché un convegno?
14.30-16.30 EAGLE: PROGRESSI, DIFFICOLTÀ, SOLUZIONI
Introduce: Giovanni Mennella
Moderano: Géza Alföldy, Gianfranco Paci
16.30 Intervallo
17.00 – 19.00 NUOVE BANCHE FEDERATE, COLLABORAZIONI, SINERGIE
Introduce: Claudio Zaccaria
Moderano: Francisca Feraudi-Gruénais, John Scheid
Sabato 8 novembre
8.30-9.30 I FINANZIAMENTI IERI, OGGI E DOMANI
Introduce: Silvio Panciera
Moderano: Angela Donati, Christian Witschel
9.30-10.30 SCELTE INFORMATICHE E ORGANIZZATIVE
Introduce: Tito Orlandi
Moderano: Silvia Orlandi, Charlotte Roueché
10.30 Intervallo
11.00 – 12.00 PROGRAMMI E PREVISIONI A BREVE, MEDIO E LUNGO TERMINE
Introduce: Carlo Carletti
Moderano: Giuseppe Camodeca, Joaquín Gómez-Pantoja
12.00-12.45 EPIGRAFIA, INFORMATICA, DIDATTICA E RICERCA STORICA
Introduce: Giovannella Cresci Marrone
Moderano: Andrea Giardina, Fausto Zevi
12.45 Congedo
Segreteria: silvia.orlandi@uniroma1.it, marialetizia.caldelli@uniroma1.it, anastasi@lincei.it

Program online (MS Word version)

Testi aggiornati (pdf or doc)

Dear colleagues and friends:

(Apologies for cross-postings to lists. Please feel free to forward to colleagues, students and other discussion fora.)

Please send me (tom.elliott@nyu.edu) information about digital projects, publications and computer-aided research in epigraphy. This information will be used to update or inform multiple resources including:

• The “ASGLE links” resource (currently out of date): http://www.case.edu/artsci/clsc/asgle/links.html
• A section on “digital epigraphy” in the forthcoming Oxford Handbook of Latin Epigraphy
• A review of the state of the discipline to be presented at the ASGLE-sponsored session of the Joint Meetings of the APA/AIA in Philadelphia in January 2009

I am interested in any undertaking that involves computational approaches or digital data, whether it has resulted in publication or not. Any subdiscipline of epigraphy (Latin, Greek, other) is of interest. Information about papyrological and palaeographical projects whose methodology, technology or content has direct application in epigraphic study is also welcome.

The ASGLE links update will include a software upgrade, and will be carried out in collaboration with the editorial board of Current Epigraphy and the leadership and appropriate committees of the Association Internationale d’ Épigraphie Grecque et Latine and of the American Society of Greek and Latin Epigraphy. All information presented in the resulting “new” links collection will be released to the public under terms of a Creative Commons Attribution license so that it can be re-used freely by others. All information sent to me will be assumed to be the intellectual property of the person submitting it, and will be treated under terms of the CC license.

Ideally, I would like to have as much of the following information as possible (please feel free to use your native language):

• Title of project, resource or publication
• Principal investigator(s), author(s) or editor(s)
• Intitutional affiliation(s)
• URLs for websites
• Publication citation(s)
• A short description
• Status (e.g., experimental, complete, published, in progress, continuing, private)
• Technologies, methodologies used
• Sources of funding (past and present)
• Contact email address

Thank you for your assistance in this endeavor.

Best,
Tom
–
Tom Elliott
Associate Director for Digital Programs
Institute for the Study of the Ancient World
New York University
http://homepages.nyu.edu/~te20/

Stephen Chrisomalis has posted on his blog Glossographia some thoughts on (and an image of) the “Elogium of Gaius Duilius” from Rome.

(reblogged from Ancient World Bloggers Group):

Here’s a hearty welcome to the blogosphere for Marion Lamé, whose Épigraphie en réseau debuts with a post entitled “The Athenian Tribute Lists, A First Bibliography.” She describes the blog thus:

Modeler l’informatique aux exigences des Sciences de l’Antiquité et transformer les outils de recherche de l’Antiquisant pour les adapter aux outils d’édition, conservation, communication et traitement de l’information modernes.

I’ve just added the blog’s feed to Maia Atlantis.

Over at Bread and Circuses, Adrian Murdoch rounds up the (epigraphic) evidence for M. Nonius Macrinus, whose monumental tomb was recently discovered north of Rome and who supposedly inspired the main character in that Ridley Scott film from 8 years back …

Charles Watkinson sends word of a new publication from the American School of Classical Studies in Athens:

Theoroi and Initiates in Samothrace: The Epigraphical Evidence, by Nora M. Dimitrova. 208 pp., 132 b/w figs (Hesperia Suppl. 37, ASCSA 2008) ISBN 978-0-87661-537-9 Pb $55.00

The core of this work is an edition of all documents pertaining to sacred ambassadors (theoroi) and initiates (mystai and epoptai) in Samothrace. These documents, which constitute the majority of all Samothracian inscriptions, form a crucial body of evidence for the Samothracian Mysteries of the Great Gods, the most famous mystery cult in antiquity after the Eleusinian Mysteries. All 169 inscriptions that concern theoroi and initiates, both published and unpublished texts, are presented here. The presentation of each document includes the following elements, in accordance with standard epigraphical publications: a physical description of the stone, bibliography, text, epigraphical commentary, and general commentary. Part I comprises documents concerning theoroi in Samothrace, and Part II, those concerning initiates. Each part is prefaced by a discussion of various problems associated these classes of visitor. A major contribution of the volume is prosopographical: The author increases the total number of known theoroi to approximately 250, and that of initiates to some 700. Fourteen new names of eponymous kings, the major Samothracian magistrates, have also been added to the list. A map of the cities who sent visitors to Samothrace demonstrates the site’s wide catchment area.

More information about the book, and a link to buy it, can be found at: http://www.ascsa.edu.gr/index.php/publications/book/?i=9780876615379

The volume is available to purchase through Amazon.com, bn.com, and other fine booksellers.

Update: Charles has provided the cover page, table of contents and introduction as a PDF file.

Noted on the website of the American School of Classical Studies in Athens:

La fin de l’épigraphie latine dans l’Orient grec: paléographie et chronologie

September 29, 2008 18:00
École française d’Athènes, Salle de Conférences, Didotou 6, 106 80 Athènes

SEMINAR
Speaker:  Denis Feissel
210-36-79-904

Séminaire de l’École française d’Athènes
Lundi 29 Septembrem 18 h
Invité: Denis Feissel, Professeur au Collège de France
La fin de l’épigraphie latine dans l’Orient grec: paléographie et chronologie
Salle de conférences de l’EfA
Renseignements : 210-36-79-904