Current Epigraphy
ISSN: 1754-0909

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.

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)

British Epigraphy Society
Autumn Colloquium
THE AFTERLIFE OF INSCRIPTIONS
&
11th ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING
Saturday, 17th November 2007, Warwick University

Organised by Abigail Graham.

Full programme in PDF

The BES Newsletter for Spring 2007 has been circulated today. The newsletter is in PDF and back issues (from 9 through to 15) can be downloaded from http://www.csad.ox.ac.uk/bes/Newsletter.htm. The Contents for the current issue include:

Announcements

News of members & other notices
Forthcoming Events, incl. AGM

Reports

BES 10th AGM
Cambridge Epigraphy Day
Joint BES / SPHS Meeting
Argos Archive Lecture, Oxford
BES Spring Colloquium

Society matters

BES Subscription and Gift Aid Forms

(Note: some of the reports have previously appeared in this blog.)

Bjorn Paarmann, Editing and commenting on the Athenian Tribute Lists in 2007.
Saturday 5th May 2007, BES Spring Meeting, Edinburgh.

Paarmann spoke about his doctoral dissertation project at Fribourg (due to be awarded Summer 2007) which was to collect, edit, and comment on the (so-called) Athenian Tribute Lists. In this paper he (1) gave a general background to the history and study of these inscriptions; (2) explained the history of the inadequate publication of the texts; (3) listed the features in his work which would improve on existing editions, in particular ATL and IG I³.

The inscriptions known as the Athenian Tribute Lists (he summarized) are in fact mostly the accounts of the 1/60th part of the tribute from the Delian League states from the time the treasury was moved the Athens in 454. This quota was dedicated to the goddess Athena of the Parthenon, hence making the mismanagement, withholding, or theft of these moneys a sacrilegious and capital offense. There must also have been (and some fragments attest to) Tribute Assessment Lists, four-yearly accounts calculating the amount to be paid by various states, and the Treasury Lists themselves showing the full amounts paid, but the substantial texts normally collected under this rubric are the Tribute Quota Lists showing the amount donated to Athena from each city’s contribution. Texts exist from the 450s through to the 430s, after which the evidence is very fragmentary and often undatable.

The Tribute Lists were first published in the form of a few fragments found on the Acropolis by Chandler in his 1765 Inscriptiones Antiquae, and then more fully, together with fragments from the American excavations of the Agora by Pittakis in 1835 (Ancienne Athènes). Several other editions gradually improved the understanding of the texts, including the difficult relationship between (and mathematical ratio of) the Quota and the Assessment figures, until the current standard text was established by Meritt and collaborators between the 1920s and 1970s. Meritt et al.’s ATL text was widely criticized for over-confident and unsupported (even unsupportable) restorations, both by European scholars such as Louis Robert, and by fellow Americans such as Sterling Dow. The text included in Inscriptiones Graecae I³ was, contrary to usual practice, edited again by Meritt and his collaborator MacGregor. Paarmann felt that by allowing this David Lewis missed the valuable opportunity to have the texts revisited by a new scholar, where in fact Meritt reproduced the readings in his own edition, discarding effectively all of the more recent emendations by other scholars and reviewers.

In the light of this unsatisfactory state of current publication, Paarlmann’s edition will improve upon ATL and IG I³ in the following ways:

• He will indicate clearly his dependence on previous editions and give full epigraphic commentary (in contrast especially with IG which had no commentary, and ATL which had little);
• He will give complete apparatus criticus;
• He will base his reading on sketches, photographs, and earlier editions, and give full documentation of these sources;
• His texts and restorations will be very conservative, especially as compared to Meritt’s ambitious speculations;
• As a result, some parts of the text will contain radical (and rational) new readings, corrections of erroneous assumptions, removal of conclusions based on circular arguments (e.g. the supposed revolt of Miletus in 454);
• The dissertation will include a major historical commentary (since an edition alone is not an acceptation doctoral dissertation in Switzerland);
• He is also compiling for later publication (although the dissertation does not include) a complete gazetteer of the states listed as contributing to the Delian League throughout its history.

27-28th June 2007: Roman Legionary Museum, Caerleon

A Practical Epigraphy Workshop is taking place for graduate students and non-student members of the British Epigraphy Society who are 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 will include 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 both those with some epigraphic experience and those who have not studied inscriptions previously are welcome.

Practical Epigraphy Workshop