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The Rosetta Stone in the British Museum.
The Rosetta Stone in the British Museum. The Rosetta Stone is an Ancient Egyptian artifact (حجر رشيد in Arabic which was instrumental in advancing modern understanding of hieroglyphic writing The British Museum is a Museum of human history and culture in London.

Epigraphy (ἐπιγραφολογία, from Greek ἐπιγραφή — "inscription") is the study of inscriptions or epigraphs engraved into stone or other durable materials, or cast in metal, the science of classifying them as to cultural context and date, elucidating them and assessing what conclusions can be deduced from them. Greek (el ελληνική γλώσσα or simply el ελληνικά — "Hellenic" is an Indo-European language, spoken today by 15-22 million people mainly A person studying this is called an epigrapher or epigraphist (ἐπιγραφολόγος).

Contents

Scope

Epigraphy is a primary tool of archaeology when dealing with literate cultures. Archaeology, archeology, or archæology (from Greek grc ἀρχαιολογία archaiologia – grc ἀρχαῖος archaīos The US Library of Congress classifies epigraphy as one of the "Auxiliary Sciences of History". The Library of Congress Classification ( LCC) is a system of Library classification developed by the Library of Congress. Epigraphy also helps identify a forgery: epigraphic evidence formed part of the discussion concerning the James Ossuary. Forgery is the process of making adapting or imitating objects statistics or documents (see False document) with the intent to deceive. The James Ossuary On October 21, 2002, a press conference co-hosted by the Discovery Channel and the Biblical Archaeology Society, Since epigraphy is a science of the particular, references to epigraphic evidence appear in most Wikipedia entries discussing aspects of Ancient history. "Ancient" redirects here For other uses see Ancient_(disambiguation.

The study of ancient handwriting, usually in ink, is a separate field, Palaeography. "Handwriting" redirects here For scripts for writing down notes by hand see " Cursive " Palaeography, palæography ( British) or paleography ( American) (from the Greek grc παλαιός palaiós,

The character of the writing, the subject of epigraphy, is a matter quite separate from the nature of the text, which is studied in itself. Texts inscribed in stone are usually for public view (or for the view of the god, as in the Persian Behistun inscription), and so they are essentially different from the written texts of each culture. The Behistun Inscription (also Bisitun or Bisutun, Modern Persian: بیستون; Old Persian: Bagastana, meaning "the god's Not all inscribed texts are public, however: in Mycenean culture the deciphered texts of "Linear B" were revealed to be largely used for economic and administrative record keeping. Mycenaean Greece is a cultural period of ancient Greece taking its name from the archaeological site of Mycenae in northeastern Argolis, in the Peloponnese Linear B is a script that was used for writing Mycenaean, an early form of Greek. Informal inscribed texts are "graffiti" in its original sense. Graffiti (singular graffito; the plural is used as a Mass noun) is the name for images or lettering scratched scrawled painted or marked in any manner on property

History

The science of epigraphy has been developing steadily since the 16th century. Principles of epigraphy vary culture by culture, and the infant science in European hands concentrated on Latin inscriptions at first. Individual contributions have been made by epigraphers such as Georg Fabricius (1516–1571); August Wilhelm Zumpt (1815–1877); Theodor Mommsen (1817–1903); Emil Hübner (1834–1901); Franz Cumont (1868–1947); Louis Robert (1904–1985). Georg Fabricius, born Georg Goldschmidt ( April 23 1516 &ndash July 17, 1571) was a Protestant German August Wilhelm Zumpt ( December 4, 1815 &ndash April 22, 1877) was a German classical scholar known chiefly in connection with Latin Christian Matthias Theodor Mommsen ( 30 November 1817 &ndash 1 November 1903) was a German classical scholar, Emil Hübner (7 July 1834 - 21 February 1901 was a German classical scholar Franz-Valéry-Marie Cumont ( Aalst Belgium, January 3 1868 – Brussels, August 25 1947) was a Belgian archaeologist Louis Robert ( Laurière, 15 February 1904 - Paris, 31 May 1985) was a professor of Greek history and Epigraphy

The Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, begun by Mommsen and other scholars, has been published in Berlin since 1863, with wartime interruptions. The Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum ( CIL) is a comprehensive collection of ancient Latin Inscriptions It forms an authoritative source It is the largest and most extensive collection of Latin inscriptions. New fascicles are still produced as the recovery of inscriptions continues. The Corpus is arranged geographically: all inscriptions from Rome are contained in volume 6. This volume has the greatest number of inscriptions; volume 6, part 8, fascicle 3 was just recently published (2000). Specialists depend on such on-going series of volumes in which newly-discovered inscriptions are published, often in Latin, not unlike the biologists' Zoological Record— the raw material of history.

Greek epigraphy has unfolded in the hands of a different team, with different corpora. In Linguistics, a corpus (plural corpora) or text corpus is a large and structured set of texts (now usually electronically stored and processed There are two. The first is Corpus Inscriptionum Graecarum of which four volumes came out, again at Berlin, 1825-1877. This marked a first attempt at a comprehensive publication of Greek inscriptions copied from all over the Greek-speaking world. Only advanced students still consult it, for better editions of the texts have superseded it. The second, modern corpus is Inscriptiones Graecae arranged geographically under categories: decrees, catalogues, honorary titles, funeral inscriptions, various. The Inscriptiones Graecae (IG ( Latin for Greek inscriptions) is an academic project originally begun by the Prussian Academy of Science, and , all presented in Latin, to preserve the international neutrality of the field of classics. "Classical literature" redirects here For literature in Classical languages outside the Graeco-Roman sphere see Ancient literature.

Other such series include the Corpus Inscriptionum Etruscarum (Etruscan inscriptions), Corpus Inscriptionum Crucesignatorum Terrae Sanctae (Crusaders' inscriptions), Corpus Inscriptionum Insularum Celticarum, (Celtic inscriptions), Corpus Inscriptionum Iranicarum (Iranian inscriptions) and so forth. The Corpus Inscriptionum Etruscarum (Body of Etruscan inscriptions is a corpus of Etruscan texts collected by Karl Pauli and his followers since 1885

Notable inscriptions

Types of inscription

See also


Other studies of the writing of texts include:


External links

Dictionary

epigraphy

-noun

  1. inscriptions collectively
  2. the study or decipherment of inscriptions, especially of ancient ones
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