Number Of Inscriptions Research Articles

A Vallombrosan Inscription

SOMETIME in 1927 or earlier Edward Hutton read and recorded in his work, The Valley of Arno (London; Constable, 1927), an inscription which tells of the ordeal by fire of one Peter, thereafter named the 'Fiery.' It appears possible but, without palaeographical and archaeological investigation, far from certain that the inscription was put up in the lifetime of the churchman it commemorates, namely the Blessed Petrus Igneus, who afterwards rose to be Cardinal-Bishop of Albano and played no inconspicuous part as a papal diplomat during the pontificate of Gregory VII. This inscription is not mentioned by the Bollandists in the Acta Sanctorum and so was probably unknown to them. It is interesting to speculate that, if the fortunes of the war just ended have chanced to destroy this inscription, we may be totally dependent on Hutton's record, which, as will appear, needs emendation. We are in an exactly parallel situation with a number of inscriptions from Classical Latin times. But this is speculation! Here are Mr Hutton's words from page 183: 'There upon the gates of the old abbey (sc. at Settimo near Florence) we may still read the inscription:

Studies in Attic Treasure-Records

The Attic Treasure-records of the fourth century B.C., or more strictly speaking those subsequent to a change in the system of administration which took place shortly before the archonship of Euklides (403/2 B.C.), afford a much more complicated subject of study than the Treasure-records of the fifth century. There is, in the first place, a far larger number of inscriptions, covering nearly a hundred years; the objects dedicated are incomparably more numerous, and are constantly increasing; and the frequent changes in the method of recording the treasures, and in the system of their administration, add to our difficulty,, and furnish many problems of which a final solution is probably unattainable. The task of workers in this field has, however, been much simplified by the recent republication of all the material in the latest part of theEditio Minorof the AtticCorpus(Inscriptiones Graecae, Vol. ii.–iii.ParsII.,Fasc.i., 1927), and it would be hard to exaggerate the importance of this publication, thanks to Kirchner's masterly handling of the texts concerned.

A New Disclosure from Sinai

In the season 1904-1905, Sir William Flinders Petrie conducted researches at Serabit-el-Hadem on the peninsula of Sinai. During this campaign he discovered a number of inscriptions in an unknown script.' Seven of them were inscriptions on votive objects found in the ruins of the temple of Hathor; the rest of them were found at a spot one and a half miles east of that temple. Petrie himself recognized the writing as of alphabetic character, but was unable to decipher it. It was straightway recognized that an inscription on the surface of a rock in the Wady Maghara, which had been previously discovered and published, was written in the same characters. The interest of scholars was at once

The Progress of Greek Epigraphy, 1915–1918

In my last epigraphical summary (J.H.S.xxxv. 260 ff.) I dealt with the period from July 1914 to June 1915 inclusive. The present article continues the record down to the close of 1918. The conditions of the three and a half years which it thus attempts to cover will, I hope, prove a sufficient excuse for any omissions which may exist—as I fear they must—in the following pages. That the output of these years should have been so much smaller than that of normal times will cause no surprise: what is surprising is rather the fact that so many books and articles should have appeared, including not a few of great and permanent value, during a world-crisis which has demanded the thought and activities of many, and the lives of some, who would otherwise have been engaged in epigraphical work—a fact which affords striking testimony to the vitality of the studies with which this article deals. Actual excavation has naturally been brought almost completely to a standstill, and the number of inscriptions published for the first time is consequently small, but noteworthy progress has been made in the restoration and interpretation of numerous previously known, and in some cases very familiar, documents.

XVII. The Kings of Vijayanagara, A.D. 1486–1509

Considerable difficulty has been experienced by Government epigraphists in dealing with the history of the double usurpations of the kingdom of Vijayanagara in Southern India and the dates of accession and death of the various rulers in the period a.d. 1486–1509; and a note on these matters based on a number of inscriptions may have a beneficial effect in somewhat clearing the ground.

Thasos. Part I.—Inscriptions

During his visit to Thasos, of which an account, with a map of the island, and plans and drawings of the more important sites will appear in a subsequent number of this Journal, Mr. J. ff. Baker-Penoyre took copies and squeezes of a number of inscriptions both on the island itself and at Cavalla on the mainland opposite.The inscriptions of Thasos are collected in I.G. xii. 8, which is now in the press and may be expected to appear shortly. Hitherto the most complete collection of them has been that in M. G. Dimitsas, ῾Η Μακεδονία i. (Athens, 1896), pp. 853–1000, consisting of 481 texts. A bibliography of Thasian epigraphy will be found in B.C.H. 1900, 263 f. together with 46 inscriptions previously unpublished.

I.—Excavations At Sparta, 1908 § 5.—Inscriptions

The removal of the substructure of the Roman circus on the side facing the Eurotas led, as was expected, to the discovery of a large number of inscriptions built into the masonry, most of which relate to the παιδικὸς ἀγών. A few more of various classes were found under similar circumstances in the neighbourhood of the temple. They range in size from an inscribed statue-base, nearly two metres high, and a marble bench, down to the merest splinters of marble bearing two or three letters. Of the inscriptions found this season which relate to the boys' contests about two-thirds of the total number are new, while the remainder join, and in some cases complete, previously published inscriptions. The arrangement of the subject-matter of this section is as follows: (a) New παιδικὸς ἀγών inscriptions; (b) New fragments of previously published παιδικὸς ἀγών inscriptions; (c) Other

First Report of a Journey in Pisidia, Lycaonia, and Pamphylia (Part III.)

We were at Khatyn Serai for four days, arriving on the fourth day of July, 1901, and leaving on the seventh. Our road from Konia lay through Baiyat, where we copied the following inscription.The length of our stay at Khatyn Serai enabled us to become acquainted with a good number of inscriptions. Besides verifying almost all the inscriptions already published from Professor Sterrett's copies, or from Professor Ramsay's earlier ones (cf. W.E. pp. 242 ff.; C.I.L. vol. iii. pp. 1239 and 2061), we heard of and copied twenty-four new inscriptions, ten of which are in Latin and one bilingual. We were also able to make some examination of Zoldera, the site of the ancient city, which lies rather more than a mile N.W. of the village.The inscriptions are most conveniently considered according to the language in which they are written; for if they were found on the site of the modern village, they were in all probability carried thither from Zoldera.

Inscriptions from Lycia and Pisidia copied by Daniell and Fellows

The Library of the Department of Greek and Roman Antiquities in the British Museum possesses a manuscript volume containing a large collection of notes on the antiquities of Lycia made at different times by Samuel Birch. A considerable part of the volume appears to be a transcript from the papers of E. T. Daniell, the scholar who accompanied Spratt and Forbes on their travels in Lycia in 1842. Daniell copied a large number of inscriptions in Lycia, the Cibyratis, Pisidia and Pamphylia, some of which were published by his fellow-travellers in the second volume of their journal. It is particularly unfortunate that Daniell did not live to publish the results of his labours, as they have clearly suffered very seriously at the hands of others. What became of his original MS. is not known, only one page apparently in his hand remaining incorporated in Birch's volume. Birch's copies must be received with a considerable amount of caution, particularly as regards the forms of the letters. At the same time there is much that is worth publishing, and I have to thank the Keeper of the Department of Greek and Roman Antiquities for his permission to publish what follows.

A Sacrificial Calendar from Cos

In the Bulletin de Correspondance Hellénique for 1881 (vol. v. pp. 216 foll.) MM. Am. Hauvette-Besnault and Marcel Dubois published a number of inscriptions from Cos, among which are two fragments of a curious sacrificial calendar. These fragments they describe as existing in the house of M. Dim. Platanistis. One of the marbles is broken at the top and the left side, and is apparently inscribed on one surface only. Fifteen lines of the inscription can be fairly well deciphered. I will call this document HBD 1. The other marble was inscribed on both sides; but only the endings of some nineteen lines on the one side, and the beginnings of as many lines on the other, now remain: I shall call this document HBD 2a, b.Mr. W. R. Paton, who has repeatedly visited Cos, has not only sent me corrections of some of the readings in HBD 1, but he has also had the good fortune to discover two other large portions of the same interesting calendar. Of these he has very kindly sent me copies, with a view to the publication of the inscription in this Journal. I propose to cite Mr. Paton's fragments as P1 and P2.The marble P1 is on the floor in front of the altar of a very old church, and has been much worn by the feet of worshippers; so that in some places all trace of letters has disappeared

Inscriptions from Iasos

Since my paper on Iasos and its history appeared in this Journal in 1887, some fresh epigraphical materials from Iasos have come to light in an unexpected manner.In the Bulletin de Corr. Hell. of 1887 (xi. p. 212 foll.) M. Kontoleon has edited a number of inscriptions, of which Nos. 2—11 are from Iasos. All of the ten are honorary dedications or ex votos of the Antonine period, presenting few features of interest. These marbles had been extracted from the ruins of Iasos by a Turkish captain commissioned by the Ottoman government; he had shipped them on board by March 1887, and conveyed them to Constantinople. They were seen there by Mr. Cecil Smith in August 1887, in the courtyard of the Seraglio Museum; he learned that they had newly arrived, and were said to have come from Iasos. The testimony of Mr. Paton settles the question of their provenance; M. Foucart, in ignorance of the facts, had suggested that they might have come from Passala, the port of Mylasa.Mr. Theodore Bent has just sent me a letter received from Dr. Albert L. Long, of Robert College, Constantinople, dated October 16, 1888. He speaks of the arrival of other inscribed marbles from Iasos, and encloses a MS. copy of them: ‘I think you saw some of the stones which were brought last winter for the work of constructing the Bebek quay. Within the last month another lot has been brought, and among them the two blocks from which the enclosed inscriptions are taken.’ There is no doubt that these marbles also are from Iasos: they have not, so far as I am aware, been published before. They are now printed from Dr. Long's MS.

Inscription from Kalymnos

I copied this inscription in 1855 from a marble found in a garden near the Marina, called Blyko, in the island of Kalymnos, the ancient Kalymna. On this site formerly stood the Church of Panagia Kalymniotissa.In the year 1854 I explored the site of the Temple of Apollo in that island and discovered there a number of inscriptions, most of which will appear in Part II. of the work on Greek Inscriptions in the British Museum, of which Part I. was published in 1874.The inscription which I have here selected for publication, and which was not taken away by me from Kalymnos, is one of a well-known class which relate to the enfranchisement of slaves, and of which many examples have been found at Delphi and elsewhere. The forms and conditions of such enfranchisement varied in different places (See M. Foucart's article, Apeleutheroi, in Daremberg, Dictionnaire des Antiquités, where the subject is very fully treated).

The Oracle Inscriptions discovered at Dodona

Students of archaeology are now familiar with the splendid work in which Constantin Carapanos two years ago gave to the world the results of his discoveries at Dodona. The vexed question of the site of the ancient temple was finally set at rest, it will be remembered, by the discovery of a large number of inscriptions recording dedications to Zeus Naïos and Dione. The immense quantity of relics and works of art brought to light in the course of the excavations has been exhaustively catalogued in the work, Dodone et ses Ruines, and they have been illustrated and described by various scholars and reviewers. The inscriptions, too, have, at least on the Continent, come in for some share of notice and criticism. A detailed account of these inscriptions—their contributions to the lexicon, to dialectology, to local and general history, and to topography—is still a desideratum. For, as was only to be expected, the interpretations and criticisms of Carapanos himself are rather general than critical. His text, moreover, is frequently open to objection.In a classification of these inscriptions our attention is at once drawn to an obviously new category; and it is with this alone that we propose to concern ourselves in the present article. The category comprises a quantity of more or less legible inscriptions engraved upon one or both sides of leaden plates often not exceeding a millimetre in thickness. These plates form a unique series of documents belonging to the archives of the famous oracle at Dodona, and contain the questions addressed, or prayers offered, to the deity by his votaries, who might be either communities or individuals.

VI. An Account of some Antiquities discovered, on digging into a large Roman Barrow, at Ellenborough, in Cumberland, 1763. By the Reverend Mr. Head, Prebendary of Carlisle

That judicious Antiquary Mr. Horsley says, there is no one Roman station in Britain, where, he believes, so great a number of inscriptions have been discovered, as at Ellenborough, in Cumberland, and most of the original inscribed stones were yet preserved at Ellenborough hall (now called Nether-hall,) the seat of Humphry Senhouse, esq; proprietor of the ground where the station was and lineal descendant from John Senhouse, esq; praised by Mr. Camden, for his great civility to Sir Robert Cotton and himself when they visited these parts; also for his excellent skill in antiquities, and for the care he took in preserving such valuable literary curiosities.

VII. Account of Inscriptions discovered on the Walls of an Apartment in the Tower of London. By the Rev. John Brand, Secretary

There is a room in Beauchamp's Tower, in the Tower of London, antiently the place of confinement for state prisoners, and which has lately been converted into a mess-room for the officers of the garrison there [a]. On this alteration being made a great number of inscriptions was discovered on the walls of the room, which probably have, for the most part, been made with nails, and are all of them, it should seem, the undoubted autographs, at different periods, of the several illustrious and unfortunate tenants of this once dreary mansion. For the discovery, as well as the preservation, of these most curious memorials, the Society stand indebted to the unremitted zeal and attention of their respectable member, Colonel Smith, F. R. S. major of the Tower of London.

VI. An Account of some Antiquities discovered, on digging into a large Roman Barrow, at Ellenborough, in Cumberland, 1763, by the Reverend Mr. Head, Prebendary of Carlisle

That judicious Antiquary Mr. Horsely says, there is no one Roman station in Britain, where, he believes, so great a number of inscriptions have been discovered, as at Ellenborough, in Cumberland, and most of the original inscribed stones were yet preserved at Ellenborough hall (now called Nether-hall) the seat of Humphry Senhouse, esq; proprietor of the ground where the station was, and lineal descendant from John Senhouse, esq; praised by Mr. Camden, for his great civility to Sir Robert Cotton and himself when they visited these parts; also for his excellent skill in antiquities, and for the care he took in preserving such valuable literary curiosities.