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The Rosetta Stone in the British Museum.
Epigraphy (Greek, ἐπιγραφή — "written upon") 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. A person studying this is called an epigrapher or epigraphist.

Scope

Epigraphy is a primary tool of archaeology when dealing with literate cultures. The US Library of Congress classifies epigraphy as one of the "Auxiliary Sciences of History". Epigraphy also helps identify a forgery: epigraphic evidence formed part of the discussion concerning the James Ossuary. Since epigraphy is a science of the particular, references to epigraphic evidence appear in most Wikipedia entries discussing aspects of Ancient history.

The study of ancient handwriting, usually in ink, is a separate field, Paleography.

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. 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. Informal inscribed texts are "graffiti" in its original sense.

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).

The Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, begun by Mommsen and other scholars, has been published in Berlin since 1863, with wartime interruptions. 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. 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., all presented in Latin, to preserve the international neutrality of the field of classics.

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.

Notable inscriptions

Types of inscription

See also

Other studies of the writing of texts include:

External links

Greek}}} 
Writing system: Greek alphabet 
Official status
Official language of:  Greece
 Cyprus
 European Union
recognised as minority language in parts of:
 European Union
 Italy
 Turkey
Regulated by:
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The Library of Congress Classification (LCC) is a system of library classification developed by the Library of Congress. It is used by most research and academic libraries in the U.S.
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Criminal law
Part of the common law series
Elements of crimes
Actus reus  · Causation  · Concurrence
Mens rea  · Intention (general)
Intention in English law  · Recklessness
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James Ossuary is a sepulchral urn for containing bones, which was found in Israel in 2002 and was claimed to have been the ossuary of James, the brother of Jesus. Its provenance is now debated, some arguing that it is a modern forgery, and other scholars continuing to maintain its
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Ancient history is the study of the written past from the beginning of human history until the Early Middle Ages[1]. The goal of the modern day critical ancient historian is objectivity.
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worldwide view of the subject.
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Penmanship or handwriting is the art of writing with the hand and a writing instrument.
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Palaeography (British) or paleography (American) (from the Greek παλαιός palaiós, "old" and γράφειν graphein
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State Party  Iran (Islamic Republic of)
Type Cultural
Criteria ii, iii
Reference 1222
Region Asia-Pacific

Inscription History
Inscription 2006  (30th Session)
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Mycenaean Greece, the last phase of the Bronze Age in ancient Greece, is the historical setting of the epics of Homer and much other Ancient Greek literature and myth.
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Linear B

Unicode range U+10000–U+1007F syllabic signs
U+10080–U+100FF logograms
ISO 15924 Linb

Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode.

This article is about the ancient syllabary.

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Graffiti (singular: graffito; the plural is used as a mass noun) is the name for images or lettering scratched, scrawled, painted or any form of marking on property that does not belong to the artist.
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Georg Fabricius, born Georg Goldschmidt (April 23 1516 – July 17, 1571), was a Protestant German poet, historian and archaeologist.

Life

Fabricius was born in Chemnitz in Saxony and educated at Leipzig.
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August Wilhelm Zumpt (December 4, 1815, Königsberg—April 22, 1877, Berlin) was a classical scholar, known chiefly in connection with Latin epigraphy. He was a nephew of Karl Gottlob Zumpt.
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Christian Matthias Theodor Mommsen

Born: November 30 1817(1817--)
Garding, Schleswig
Died: November 1 1903 (aged 87)

Occupation: Classical Scholar, Jurist and Historian
Nationality: German
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Emil Hübner (July 7, 1834 - February 21, 1901) was a German classical scholar.

He was born at Düsseldorf, the son of the historical painter Julius Hübner (1806-1882), After studying at Berlin and Bonn, he travelled extensively with a view to antiquarian and epigraphical
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Franz-Valéry-Marie Cumont (Aalst, Belgium, January 3 1868 – Brussels, August 25 1947) was a Belgian archaeologist and historian, a philologist and student of epigraphy, who brought these often isolated specialties to bear on the syncretic mystery religions of Late Antiquity,
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Louis Robert (Laurière, 15 February 1904 - Paris, 31 May 1985) was a professor of Greek history and Epigraphy at the Collège de France, and author of many volumes and articles on Greek epigraphy (of all periods, from the archaic period to Late Antiquity), numismatics, and the
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The Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum (CIL) is a comprehensive collection of ancient Latin inscriptions. It forms an authoritative source for documenting the surviving epigraphy of classical antiquity.
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A fascicle is a bundle or a cluster.

Fascicle may also refer to:
  • Muscle fascicle, in anatomy, a bundle of skeletal muscle fibers surrounded by connective tissue
  • Nerve fascicle, in anatomy, a larger bundle of fibers enclosed by the perineurium

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In linguistics, a corpus (plural corpora) or text corpus is a large and structured set of texts (now usually electronically stored and processed). They are used to do statistical analysis, checking occurrences or validating linguistic rules on a specific universe.
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The Inscriptiones Graecae (IG) (Latin for Greek inscriptions), is an academic project originally begun by the Prussian Academy of Science, and today continued by its successor organisation, the Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften.
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Classics or Classical Studies is the branch of the Humanities dealing with the languages, literature, history, art, and other aspects of the ancient Mediterranean world; especially Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome during the time known as classical antiquity, roughly
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The Corpus Inscriptionum Etruscarum ("Body of Etruscan inscriptions") is a corpus of Etruscan texts, collected by Karl Pauli and his followers since 1885. After the death of Olof August Danielsson in 1933, this collection was passed on to the Uppsala University Library.
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Rosetta Stone is an Ancient Egyptian artifact which was instrumental in advancing modern understanding of hieroglyphic writing. The stone is a Ptolemaic era stele with carved text.
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State Party  Iran (Islamic Republic of)
Type Cultural
Criteria ii, iii
Reference 1222
Region Asia-Pacific

Inscription History
Inscription 2006  (30th Session)
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Decree of Themistocles is an ancient Greek inscription discussing Greek strategy in the Greco-Persian Wars, purported to have been issued by the Athenian assembly under the guidance of Themistocles.
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The Dipylon inscription is a short text written on an ancient Greek pottery vessel dated to c.740 BCE. It is famous for being the oldest (or one of the oldest) known samples of the use of the Greek alphabet.
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Edicts of Ashoka are a collection of 33 inscriptions on the Pillars of Ashoka, as well as boulders and cave walls, made by the Emperor Ashoka of the Mauryan dynasty during his reign from 272 to 231 BCE.
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Laguna Copperplate inscription (also shortened to LCI), found 1989 in Laguna de Bay, in the metroplex of Manila, Philippines, has inscribed on it a date of Saka era 822, corresponding to 900 CE, containing words from Sanskrit, old Javanese, old Malay and old Tagalog,
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