Current Epigraphy
ISSN: 1754-0909

The Department of Ancient History (ELTE University, Budapest) and the board of trustees of the Non omnis moriar Foundation (to commemorate late Prof. István Hahn) invite you with deep respect to the ceremony and the international colloquium of the

2nd István Hahn Lecture (2010)

Venue:
István Hahn Seminar Room
ELTE BTK Múzeum krt. 6–8. Rm 138.
Date: 10 AM, 29 March 2010

10.00. Opening:
Tamás Dezső, Dean of the Faculty

10.20. Honorary lecture:
Ioan Piso (Klausenburg): Capitolia, epulum Iovis und dies Iovis. Die Beispiele von Dakien, Pannonien und Hispania Tarraconensis

11.00. Conference
Marc Mayer (Barcelona): La céramique avec inscriptions de La Maja (La Rioja, España).

11.20. Radu Ardevan (Klausenburg): Die Verteilung der römischen Provinz Dakien in der Geschichtschreibung

11.40. Giulia Baratta (Macerata): Riefelsarkophage und Bildersprache.

12.00. Élodie Cairon (Paris): Présentation du numéro 18 d’Hungarian Polis Studies : Les épitaphes métriques hellénistiques du Péloponnèse à la Thessalie

12.20. Péter Kató (Budapest-Heidelberg): Philoi kai symmachoi: Polis-Netzwerke und der Krieg in der hellenistischen Zeit

12.40. Discussion

The Fundación Uncastillo and UNED Tudela have announced the first colloquium on the archaeology and ancient history of Los Bañales: ‘Las Cupae Hispanas: Origen, Difusión, Uso, Tipologia’, which will be held from 16-18 April 2010 at Uncastillo (Zaragoza).

This colloquium investigates the phenomenon of the cupae, which are roughly semi-cylindrical or barrel-shaped tomb monuments found at various sites across the Iberian Peninsula from the first to the third centuries A.D. Many are inscribed with funerary texts in Latin. Scholars from many areas of the Peninsula as well as elsewhere in Europe are gathering for the three-day colloquium at Uncastillo to discuss a number of questions relating to these monuments: their origins, which remain a source of contention; their diffusion across the Peninsula; their practical and symbolic uses by members of different social groups; and their typology, which has thus far proved difficult to establish. This is the first conference to be devoted to this enigmatic type of funerary monument.

Further information and the conference programme can be found here:

Las Cupae Hispanas

This year one of the strands in the programme of the Digital Humanities Observatory Summer School is an EpiDoc training workshop, which may be of interest to epigraphists (please circulate this announcement widely, especially to students):

This course will introduce attendees to EpiDoc markup, an XML schema for epigraphic and papyrological editions. The workshop is targeted at Classical scholars: we shall assume knowledge of Greek and/or Latin and some experience in Classical history or adjacent disciplines, but no technical expertise is required. We shall introduce students to the use of EpiDoc markup to record the distinctions expressed by the Leiden Conventions and traditional critical editions, and some of the issues in translating between EpiDoc and the major epigraphic and papyrological databases. Students will also be given hands-on experience in the use of the “Son of SOL” editing tool, currently implemented by the Duke Databank of Documentary Papyri, which facilitates the creation of validating EpiDoc XML via a ‘tags-free’ interface.

Registration for the summer school costs €300 students / €400 staff.
Subsidized/free places are available for members of Irish universities,
and we hope that a few bursaries will also be available for EpiDoc
students. Please get in touch with <gabriel.bodard@kcl.ac.uk> if you want more information.

Announcement: DHO Summer School registration now open

Epigraphic Saturday in Cambridge on 27 March

A day of lectures and shorter presentations in Room G.21 of the Classics Faculty Building, Sidgwick Avenue, Cambridge, starting (with coffee) at 10.00 am. (Lunch will be available in Newnham College opposite).

The first speaker will be Richard Gordon on “Putting the gods to work: the new prayers for justice in Latin from Moguntiacum / Mainz”.

Anyone who would like to offer a paper or make a short presentation is asked to get in touch with Joyce Reynolds (jmr38@cam.ac.uk with a copy please to djt17@cam.ac.uk) as soon as possible so a programme can be finalised. This will then be posted on the Faculty website. It would also be helpful but not essential to have some idea of numbers in advance (to djt17@cam.ac.uk).

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.

Saturday 24 April, 2010
Trinity College Dublin

(In)formal epigraphy
This meeting examines formality and informality within epigraphic culture. What different types of formality and informality can we detect in epigraphic material and to what extent is this affected by the survival and recording of material? How does the use of space (where do we find epigraphic writing?), agency (who writes? who publishes?), or interaction with the inscriptions (who views them and why?) construct notions – or undermine them – about formality/informality? How do these ideas affect the reuse and reception of inscriptions, ancient and modern?

10.30-11.00: Coffee & registration
11.00-11.45: Dr Graham Oliver (University of Liverpool): Formality & informality in Attic inscriptions
11.45-12.30: Dr Jennifer Baird (Birkbeck College, London): Graffiti & inscriptions in Dura-Europos
12.30-1.00: Lunch
1.00-1.45: Dr Amanda Kelly (NUI Galway): Informal invective: inscriptions on sling shots
1.45-2.30: Short reports
2.30-3.30: Travel to UCD (Coffee on arrival)
3.30-5.00: Prof. Andrew Smith (UCD): Tour of the epigraphic collection in the UCD Classical Museum

Colloquium fees
Registration including tea, coffee, and the sandwich lunch:
€15.00 (BES/AIEGL members), €10.00 (BES student members), €25.00 (non-members).

Registration without lunch:
€10.00 (members), €5.00 (student members), €20.00 (non-members).

Taxi fare from TCD to UCD (for museum trip)
Between €5 and €20 one way (depending on how many people share a taxi. Please bring cash to pay the taxi driver).

For further information, or to reserve a place at the colloquium and a sandwich lunch, please contact Dr Claire Taylor (claire.taylor@tcd.ie). The deadline for registration is 9 April 2010.

(Download a poster of this announcement)

Rencontres épigraphiques de l’EfA
En collaboration avec le Musée épigraphique d’Athènes
Programme 2010
Le mardi de 10h à 12h
au Musée épigraphique, Tositsa 1

Mardi 19 janvier 2010
George Steinhauer (Eπίτιμος Διευθυντής Αρχαιότητων)
« Ένα αναθηματικό μνημείο στην οικογένεια του Αυγούστου από την ακρόπολη της Σπάρτης »

Mardi 9 février 2010
Madalina Dana (EHESS)
« La mobilité des enseignants dans le monde grec : révision de deux inscriptions du Pont-Euxin »

Mardi 23 février 2010
Miltiade HATZOPOULOS (KERA)
« Un décret urbanistique de Kyrrhos (Macédoine) »

Mardi 16 mars 2010
Robert K. Pitt (British School at Athens)
« ID 104-4: Some new readings and old problems from an Athenian building contract on Delos »

Mardi 20 avril 2010
Mathilde DOUTHE (École française d’Athènes)
« La situation linguistique à Delphes aux IVe – IIIe siècles »

Mardi 11 mai 2010
A préciser

Mardi 12 octobre 2010
Christina Kokkinia (KERA)
« Prospection épigraphique à Boubôn (Lycie) »

Mardi 16 novembre 2010
Daniela Summa (IG Berlin, DAI)
« Recherches sur le corpus de la Locride orientale »

Mardi 14 décembre 2010
Francesco Camia (KERA)
« Η λατρεία των ρωμαίων αυτοκρατόρων στην Ελλάδα: η περίπτωση των πελοποννησιακών πόλεων »

Analysis and Uses of Greek Amphora Stamps

International Congress
French School at Athens, University of Rennes 2 – Haute Bretagne
Athens, February 3 – 5, 2010

Thanks to Nathan Badoud for sending notice that the programme and abstracts for this event are now available onlin at the congress website: http://www.efa.gr/Recherche/Manif/timbres/presentation_en.htm

Please send any enquiries to amphore@efa.gr

(If you attend this event, we would welcome a report or review to post to Current Epigraphy. Please contact the editors or leave a comment to volunteer.)

The results of the research program of the Universities of Calabrie, Napoli Federico II, Parma, Roma Sapienza,Venezia Ca’ Foscari on La ‘terza’ Grecia e l’Occidente:

Lo spazio ionico e le comunità della Grecia nord-occidentale Territorio, società, istituzioni

a cura di Claudia Antonetti
Giovedì 7 gennaio 2010
10,00 Saluti del Rettore dell’Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia

Filippo Maria Carinci (Preside della Facoltà di Lettere e Filosofia) inaugura il convegno

Luisa Breglia (coordinatrice del PRIN, Università di Napoli Federico II) presenta il progetto di rilevante interesse nazionale La ‘terza’ Grecia e l’Occidente

Claudia Antonetti (responsabile dell’Unità di ricerca dell’Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia) presenta il convegno

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Paper presented at the British Epigraphy Society Autumn Meeting. (Brief Report by Philip Davies)

The Earliest Runic Inscriptions: Problems of Language and Interpretation

Elizabeth Solopova, Oxford, November 21st, 2009

In keeping with the theme of the British Epigraphy Society’s Autumn Colloquium, (‘Epigraphy, but not as we know it’) this interesting paper took us away from the familiar territories of the Mediterranean to consider the Runic alphabet (or, to give it its proper name, futhark) used by Scandinavian and Germanic peoples from the second century through to, in the case of Scandinavia, the early modern period. Specifically, her paper examined the difficulties of interpreting ‘older runes’, these being the futhark as extant from approximately the 2nd to the 6th centuries AD. After this the futhark entered a phase of transition, developing and diversifying into regional variations, known collectively as ‘younger runes’.

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Reports given at British Epigraphy Society Autumn Meeting, November 21, 2009. (Brief summary by Gabriel Bodard)

1) Nicholas Milner on recent work at Oinoanda

Nicholas reported on the ongoing epigraphic work at the Oinoanda excavations (where he has been resposible for new inscriptions since 1994), funded by the DAI. New finds since 2007 include:

• several inscriptions on an octagonal tower in the Hellenistic wall including references to Apollo Hypsistos; the tower seems to have been an outdoor shrine to the Sun, and seems to settle the taxing question of which god was referred to by Hypsistos at this site;
• an inscription marking the foundation by C. Iulius Moles of a temple to Caesar, which appears to belong to the reign of Augustus;
• in 2009, a base bearing a verse inscription to Nemesis and a sundial;
• an inscribed lintel block from an early Christian church.

2) Ulrike Roth on Albert Rehm

Ulrike (incoming BES secretary) addressed the meeting with a question rather than a report. Albert Rehm was a German school-teacher and ancient historian (known for his epigraphic work), active in the periods before and after the Second World War, and was outspoken on the subject of the Nazi approaches to ancient history. He described himself as a “Third Humanist”, although this clearly meant something different from Werner Jaeger’s use of the same label. Rehm believed firmly in the importance of working in the field (where Jaeger was reluctant to sully his view of the ancient world by visiting modern Greece), hence his epigraphic research. Ulrike is looking for information, even stories and anecdotes, about Rehm’s fieldwork, in the hope that this might cast light on his vision of “Third Humanism”.

3) Jonathan Prag on financial inscriptions from Taormina

Jon described a collaborative project to republish and analyse 13 financial inscriptions from the Sicel city of Taormina (which was allied to Rome in the Second Punic War), that have been published in scattered publications of variable quality. (8 of the inscriptions are in IG 14; 4 were published by Manganaro from inadequate photographs.) The inscriptions reveal many details of the city’s finances and administration in the 2nd and 1st centuries BC: there are changes over time in the math used, as well as in the administration, the calendar, and the currencies in use. One text in particular offers a thorny problem of dating: it is written in Greek, so should be from before the Roman colony in 27 BC; the reference to the month of  “Quinctilis” should be from before 46; the reference to “duoandres” should be after 44. Manganaro suggests that the text may date from the period when Sextus Pompeius governed the city between 44 and 36, but much remains unclear. The new publication will make new joins between some of the text fragments, and will also thoroughly address issues with the provenance of the inscriptions, some of which are moved and only partially recorded in the excavation reports.

Paper presented at British Epigraphy Society Autumn Meeting. (Brief report by Gabriel Bodard)

Writing in Cypro-Minoan: Beyond Decipherment.

Silvia Ferrara, Oxford,  November 21, 2009

In this paper, Ferrara introduced the audience to problems in the decipherment and interpretation of inscriptions in the Cypro-Minoan script. Since there are only some 217 documents (comprising 4000 signs) in this script, decipherment is difficult if not impossible, and so identification of the language and context of the texts will depend more upon quantitative elements, the objects themselves, their distribution and other archaeological information.

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EPIGRAPHY AND THE GREEK HISTORIAN

Institute for Classical Studies
Ancient History Seminar

Thursdays at 4.30 pm
G 22/26 South Block, Senate House
Spring term 2010
Organiser: Christy Constantakopoulou (Birkbeck)
c.constantakopoulou@bbk.ac.uk

14 January Graham Oliver (Liverpool) Destroying inscriptions: the authorised and unauthorised removal of inscribed documents in the Greek world

21 January Angelos Chaniotis (Oxford) Moving stones: the study of emotions in Greek inscriptions

28 January Robin Osborne (Cambridge) The letter: a diplomatic history

4 February Riet van Bremen (UCL) A Hellenistic list of donors (?) and some other puzzling lists

11 February Irene Polinskaya (KCL) A new corpus of ancient inscriptions from the northern Black Sea

25 February Stephen Lambert (Cardiff) Priests and priestesses in Athenian honorific decrees

4 March Polly Low (Manchester) Constructing lives from stone: inscriptions and biographical traditions

11 March Claire Taylor (Trinity College, Dublin) Graffiti or inscriptions? Some problems from Attica

ALL WELCOME.

Dates: 3-4 December. Organizer: Manuela Mari

Diritto ed economia nella Grecia antica. Norme e riflessione giuridica su proprietà, transazioni, scambi commerciali.

Incontro di studi.

Università di Cassino

Aula Magna – Facoltà di Ingegneria – via G. Di Biasio, 43 – Cassino

Giovedì 3 dicembre.

Ore 15. Apertura dei lavori.

Ore 15.30.

Laura Boffo (Università di Trieste). Leggi e mercanti nel mondo greco.

Anna Magnetto (Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa). La città e il mercante: incentivi e agevolazioni nel mondo greco di età classica ed ellenistica.

Manuela Mari (Università di Cassino), John Thornton (Università di Roma “La Sapienza”). Riassetti di proprietà e cittadinanza, staseis e rapporti tra re e città nella Grecia ellenistica.

Edward E. Cohen (University of Pennsylvania). Commercial contracts with slaves: legal and economic significance at Athens.

Donatella Erdas (Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa). Garanti, appalti pubblici e economia della città: alcune osservazioni.

Ugo Fantasia (Università di Parma). I magistrati dell’agora e i prezzi del grano nelle città greche.

Ore 18.30.

Discussione.

Venerdì 4 dicembre.

Ore 9.30.

Francesco Guizzi (Università di Roma “La Sapienza”). Case e patrimoni: Gortina.

Stefano Ferrucci (Università di Siena-Grosseto). Case e patrimoni: Atene.

Michele Faraguna (Università di Trieste). Diritto, economia, società: tombe e periboloi ad Atene.

Adele Scafuro (Brown University, Providence). The Economics of the Athenian Court System.

Lucia Criscuolo (Università di Bologna). A proposito di en patrikois.

Alice Bencivenni (Università di Bologna). Prostagmata di Seleuco IV.

Ore 12.30.

Discussione.

22-24th June 2010, Great North Museum, Newcastle

A Practical Epigraphy Workshop is taking place for those who are interested in developing hands-on skills in working with epigraphic material. The workshop is aimed at graduate students, but other interested parties are welcome to apply, whether or not they have previous experience. With expert tuition, participants will learn the practical aspects 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.

The course fee is £100 but we hope to be able to provide bursaries to participants to assist with the cost. Accommodation will be extra, but we are arranging B&B nearby for around £30-40.

Places on the workshop are limited and applications will be accepted until 31st March. For further details please contact: charlotte.tupman@kcl.ac.uk.

The Practical Epigraphy Workshop is sponsored by The British Epigraphy Society, an independent ‘chapter’ of the Association Internationale d’Epigraphie Grecque et Latine.