This important volume collects essays on topics in Greek history and epigraphy by an international cast of highly respected historians and epigraphers. Contributions include new and authoritative papers on Athenian politics and political institutions, the language and significance of honorific decrees, the role of inscriptions in the Athenian democratic state and elsewhere, as well as analyses of the methods for interpreting them. Together this collection represents an appropriate celebration of the work of the distinguished historian Professor Peter Rhodes.
" In short, this is a reference work of the best kind. For the beginner, it is indispensable. And for those who already know something about its subject matter, the book is in many ways useful, informative, and interesting. We all owe a debt to the author] for undertaking this significant project, and for completing it so well." - Michael Peachin, Classical World " . . . provides invaluable road maps for non-epigraphers faced with passages of inscribed Greek." - Graham Shipley, Bryn Mawr Classical Review Greek inscriptions form a valuable resource for the study of all aspects of the Greco-Roman world. They are primary witnesses to society's laws and institutions, religious habits, and language. This volume provides students with the tools to take advantage of the historical value of these treasures. It examines letter forms, ancient names, and ancient calendars, knowledge of which is essential in reading inscriptions of all kinds. B. H. McLean discusses the classification of inscriptions into their various categories and analyzes particular types of inscriptions, including decrees, honorary inscriptions, dedications, funerary inscriptions, and manumissions. Finally, McLean includes special topics that bear upon the interpretation of specific features of inscriptions, such as Greek and Roman administrative titles and functions.
Epigraphic Evidence is an accessible guide to the responsible use of Greek and Latin inscriptions as sources for ancient history. It introduces the types of historical information supplied by inscriptional texts and the methods with which they can be used. It outlines the limitations as well as the advantages of the different types of evidence covered. Epigraphic Evidence includes a general introduction, a guide to the arrangement of the standard corpora inscriptions and individual chapters on local languages and native cultures, epitaphs and the ancient economy amongst others.
Ancient Greek vase-paintings offer broad-ranging and unprecedented early perspectives on the often intricate interplay of images and texts. This book investigates both epigraphic technicalities of Attic and non-Attic inscriptions, and their broader, iconographic and sociocultural, significance.
The Oxford Handbook of Hellenic Studies is a unique collection of some seventy articles which together explore the ways in which ancient Greece has been, is, and might be studied. It is intended to inform its readers, but also, importantly, to inspire them, and to enable them to pursue their own research by introducing the primary resources and exploring the latest agenda for their study. The emphasis is on the breadth and potential of Hellenic Studies as a flourishing and exciting intellectual arena, and also upon its relevance to the way we think about ourselves today.
Greek Epigraphy and Religion explores the insights provided by inscribed texts into the religious practices of the ancient Greek world. The papers study material ranging geographically from Epiros to Egypt and chronologically from the Classical to the Roman period.
Tombstones provide the largest single category of epigraphical evidence from the worlds of ancient Greece and Rome, and their inscriptions have been widely studied with reference to art and cultural history, ancient social history, prosopography and onomastics. But even though students of history and archaeology devote extensive attention to death and burial in antiquity, epigraphy - the study of inscriptions - remains, for many, an abstruse subject.
If a scholar wishes to create a picture of a topical society in all its aspects, there is little of what he needs to know that he cannot know, although there may still be much that he cannot understand. For the history of Greece and Rome, there is a great deal that is simply unknowable. From the end of the archaic age of Greece, there is an unbroken sequence of works by Greek and, later, Roman historians down to the end of antiquity. Their vision and range of interest were often limited and much of what they produced has been lost. Some help may be derived from the documentary material supplied in antiquity, material that was the product of officials organising public activities, or heads of families organising their affairs, or individuals leaving their mark on the world. Beyond this, the evidence of archaeology and numismatics may also be helpful. The four essays in this book set out to characterise the nature of the ancient literary tradition, the inscriptional material, the archaeological and numismatic evidence and to explain how and for what purposes they may be used.
This volume presents epigraphic research using digital and computational tools, comparing the outcomes of both well-established and newer projects to consider the most innovative investigative trends. Papers consider open-access databases, SfM Photogrammetry and Digital Image Modelling applied to textual restoration, Linked Open Data, and more.
Epigraphy is a method of inferring and analyzing historical data by means of inscriptions found on ancient artifacts such as stones, coins, and statues. It has proven indispensable for archaeologists and classicists, and has considerable potential for the study of ancient history at the undergraduate and graduate levels. Epigraphy and the Greek Historian is a collection of essays that explore various ways in which inscriptions can help students reconstruct and understand Greek History. In order to engage with the study of epigraphy, this collection is divided into two parts, Athens and Athens from the outside. The contributors maintain the importance of epigraphy, arguing that, in some cases, inscriptions are the only tools we have to recover the local history of places that stand outside the main focus of ancient literary sources, which are often frustratingly Athenocentric. Ideally, the historian uses both inscriptions and literary sources to make plausible inferences and thereby weave together the disconnected threads of the past into a connected and persuasive narrative. Epigraphy and the Greek Historian is a comprehensive examination of epigraphy and a timely resource for students and scholars involved in the study of ancient history.
