The Rosetta Stone in the British MuseumInscription on the pedestal of the statue of Michel Ney from ParisTamil incscribed on Brihadeshwara temple, Thanjavur, India.Trilingual inscription of Xerxes I at Van Fortress in Turkey
Epigraphy (from Ancient Greek ἐπιγραφή (epigraphḗ) 'inscription') is the study of inscriptions, or epigraphs, as writing; it is the science of identifying graphemes, clarifying their meanings, classifying their uses according to dates and cultural contexts, and drawing conclusions about the writing and the writers. Specifically excluded from epigraphy are the historical significance of an epigraph as a document and the artistic value of a literary composition. A person using the methods of epigraphy is called an epigrapher or epigraphist. For example, the Behistun inscription is an official document of the Achaemenid Empire engraved on native rock at a location in Iran. Epigraphists are responsible for reconstructing, translating, and dating the trilingual inscription and finding any relevant circumstances. It is the work of historians, however, to determine and interpret the events recorded by the inscription as document. Often, epigraphy and history are competences practised by the same person. Epigraphy is a primary tool of archaeology when dealing with literate cultures.[1] The US Library of Congress classifies epigraphy as one of the auxiliary sciences of history.[2] Epigraphy also helps identify a forgery:[3] epigraphic evidence formed part of the discussion concerning the James Ossuary.[4][5]
An epigraph (not to be confused with epigram) is any sort of text, from a single grapheme (such as marks on a pot that abbreviate the name of the merchant who shipped commodities in the pot) to a lengthy document (such as a treatise, a work of literature, or a hagiographic inscription). Epigraphy overlaps other competences such as numismatics or palaeography. When compared to books, most inscriptions are short. The media and the forms of the graphemes are diverse: engravings in stone or metal, scratches on rock, impressions in wax, embossing on cast metal, cameo or intaglio on precious stones, painting on ceramic or in fresco. Typically the material is durable, but the durability might be an accident of circumstance, such as the baking of a clay tablet in a conflagration.
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 and so they are essentially different from the written texts of each culture. Not all inscribed texts are public, however: in Mycenaean Greece 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.
The study of ideographic inscriptions, that is inscriptions representing an idea or concept, may also be called ideography. The German equivalent Sinnbildforschung was a scientific discipline in the Third Reich, but was later dismissed as being highly ideological.[6] Epigraphic research overlaps with the study of petroglyphs, which deals with specimens of pictographic, ideographic and logographic writing. The study of ancient handwriting, usually in ink, is a separate field, palaeography.[7] Epigraphy also differs from iconography, as it confines itself to meaningful symbols containing messages, rather than dealing with images.
Arabesque epigraphy with various Maghrebi Arabic scripts in the Myrtle Court of the Alhambra.
^Bozia, Eleni; Barmpoutis, Angelos; Wagman, Robert S. (2014). "OPEN-ACCESS EPIGRAPHY. Electronic Dissemination of 3D-digitized. Archaeological Material" (PDF). Hypotheses.org: 12. Retrieved 21 September 2018.
^Drake, Miriam A. (2003). Encyclopedia of Library and Information Science. Dekker Encyclopedias Series. Vol. 3. CRC Press. ISBN 0-8247-2079-2.
^Orlandi, Silvia; Caldelli, Maria Letizia; Gregori, Gian Luca (November 2014). Bruun, Christer; Edmondson, Jonathan (eds.). "Forgeries and Fakes". The Oxford Handbook of Roman Epigraphy. Oxford Handbooks. doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195336467.013.003. ISBN 9780195336467.
^Silberman, Neil Asher; Goren, Yuval (September–October 2003). "Faking Biblical History: How wishful thinking and technology fooled some scholars – and made fools out of others". Archaeology. Vol. 56, no. 5. Archaeological Institute of America. pp. 20–29. JSTOR 41658744. Retrieved 27 April 2011.
^Shanks, Hershel. "Related Coverage on the James Ossuary and Forgery Trial". Biblical Archaeology Review. Archived from the original on 7 September 2011. Retrieved 27 February 2012.
^Mees, Bernard Thomas, The Science of the Swastika, Budapest / New York 2008.
^Brown, Julian. "What is Palaeography?" (PDF). UMassAmherst. Retrieved 21 September 2018. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
Epigraphy (from Ancient Greek ἐπιγραφή (epigraphḗ) 'inscription') is the study of inscriptions, or epigraphs, as writing; it is the science of identifying...
[1982]. Early history of the alphabet: an introduction to west Semitic epigraphy and palaeography (Reprint ed.). Jerusalem: Magnes Press. ISBN 978-9-652-23436-0...
deciphered epigraphy found in the Indian subcontinent are the Edicts of Ashoka of the 3rd century BCE, in the Brahmi script. If epigraphy of proto-writing...
euphemistically instead. Read's first extended work, Lexical Evidence from Folk Epigraphy in Western North America: A Glossarial Study of the Low Element in the...
Hultzsch in 1925. Annual Report on Indian Epigraphy The first volume of the Annual Report on Indian Epigraphy was brought out by the epigraphist -E. Hultzsch...
Kali Yuga, in Hinduism, is the fourth, shortest and worst of the four yugas (world ages) in a Yuga Cycle, preceded by Dvapara Yuga and followed by the...
Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy or AAE is a scholarly journal for articles relating to the ancient Arabian Peninsula region. In recent years, the Arabian...
In epigraphy, a multilingual inscription is an inscription that includes the same text in two or more languages. A bilingual is an inscription that includes...
This article contains special characters. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols. 0 (zero) is a number representing...
Diwali (English: /dɪˈwɑːliː/; Deepavali, IAST: Dīpāvalī) is the Hindu festival of lights, with variations celebrated in other Indian religions. It symbolises...
of inscriptions and museum guides. An epigraphy wing was inaugurated in 1966. Since its inception, the epigraphy wing has prepared estampages of about...
Kannada. Iravatam Mahadevan, a Brahmin, author of a work on early Tamil epigraphy, argued that oral traditions in Kannada and Telugu existed much before...
A consul was the highest elected public official of the Roman Republic (c. 509 BC to 27 BC). Romans considered the consulship the second-highest level...
inscription of 919 ... the Kutila inscription is of great importance in Indian epigraphy, not only from its precise date, but from its offering a definite early...
it has had a "supra-local" status as evidenced by 1st-millennium CE epigraphy and manuscripts discovered all over India and as far as Sri Lanka, Burma...
calendar era in use became popular as Vikram Samvat); Buddhist and Jain epigraphy continued to use an era based on the Buddha or the Mahavira. According...
Balarama (Sanskrit: बलराम, IAST: Balarāma) is a Hindu god, and the elder brother of Vāsudeva-Krishna He is particularly significant in the Jagannath tradition...
Machine). Gordon, Arthur E. (1983). Illustrated Introduction to Latin Epigraphy. University of California Press. pp. 45. ISBN 9780520038981. Retrieved...
interpretation of these inscriptions is the subject matter of the field of epigraphy. About 270,000 inscriptions are known. The Latin influence in English...
Sita Rama Raju was ruling the land and mentions the god Kesavasvami and the village Chodavaram. Rajus Early Indian epigraphy South Indian Inscriptions...
November 2021. Gordon, Arthur E. (1983). Illustrated Introduction to Latin Epigraphy. University of California Press. pp. 44. ISBN 9780520038981. Retrieved...
(28 February 2019), "Method and methods", Palaeohispanic Languages and Epigraphies, Oxford University Press, pp. 1–24, doi:10.1093/oso/9780198790822.003...
December 2014. Gordon, Arthur E. (1983). Illustrated Introduction to Latin Epigraphy. University of California Press. pp. 44. ISBN 9780520038981. Retrieved...
Varāhamihira and Brahmagupta, and by the 7th century also appears in epigraphy in Hindu Southeast Asia. The calendar era remained in use in India and...
has long been hailed as an important work in the development of Chinese epigraphy since its publication. Zhao Mingcheng was born in Zhucheng, Shandong in...
archaeological research at Saruq al-Hadid, Dubai, UAE". Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy. 28 (1): 39. doi:10.1111/aae.12082. ISSN 0905-7196. "Brushing off sands...
century BCE in the writings of Pāṇini, and from the 2nd century BCE in epigraphy with the Heliodorus pillar. At one point in time, it is thought that the...
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