CfP: Epigraphy and Mobility (Coimbra, 15-18 July 2025)

CfP: Epigraphy and Mobility: Understanding Patterns of Identity and Migration through Inscriptions in Ancient Societies
at the 16th Celtic Conference in Classics (15-18 July 2025, University of Coimbra)

We welcome submissions from scholars at every career stage by Thursday, 20 February 2025.

Template to submit your abstract is available here: https://www.uc.pt/cech/16-ccc/calls/call-for-papers/

The epigraphic medium represents a source of direct information on issues of mobility and migration in the ancient world. Inscriptions are indeed a well attested mode of communication through a wide geographical and chronologic range, providing us with a privileged viewpoint on the interaction between different writing cultures. The issues of mobility that will be explored in the proposed panel entail the circulation of individual, or groups of individuals, and of material and immaterial goods either within the same community, or across different communities and countries, for economic, social, cultural, gendered, political and religious reasons. In this scenario, private and public inscriptions, both in prose and in verses, provide a window into modes of representation and self-representation of the actors involved in dynamics of connection and transition in antiquity.

This panel welcomes attempts to investigate these dynamics in inscriptions from the Greek and Roman worlds, including provinces and colonies, in the Near East and in traditionally marginalized geographical contexts. Phenomena of mobility that shed light on cultural contacts between Greek – Roman communities and indigenous cultures will be also addressed and examined. Ethnographic and gender perspectives are among the possible angles through which inscriptions can inform our understanding of ancient processes of integration, mobility and exchange. Possible approaches to the themes of the panel include new methodologies (e.g., cognitive humanities, data mining, geospatial technologies, including GIS applications and web mapping, social network analysis) alongside more traditional historical, prosopographical and textual analysis approaches.

Extended version of this call is available at https://www.uc.pt/site/assets/files/1937571/16ccc_cfpapers_epigraphy_and_mobility-understanding_patterns_of_identity_and_migration_through_inscriptions_in_ancient_socie.pdf

Please send a title and an abstract of 300 words, along with a brief scholarly biography, to Federica Scicolone (f.scicolone@ssmeridionale.it) and Roberto Melfi (robertodomenico.melfi@unina.it) by Thursday, 20 February 2025.

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Studying Greek Inscriptions on Paros (June 22 – July 5, 2025)

The Epigraphy of the Aegean Islands:
Studying Greek Inscriptions on Paros
June 22 – July 5, 2025

This course aims at introducing the participants to the study of Greek inscriptions from the Archaic Period to the Roman times with an emphasis on the inscriptions of the Aegean Islands. Students will have the opportunity to be taught by world experts in the field and to become familiar with the nature of epigraphic documents. They will be introduced to the expertise required in the field of Greek epigraphy and will understand how inscriptions are invaluable documents for the knowledge of Ancient History.

More about the program: https://www.herc.gr/the-epigraphy-of-the-aegean-islands-paros/

The Hellenic Education & Research Center (HERC) was established in 2006 and is dedicated to the promotion of Hellenic Studies with an emphasis on the Classics.
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Lucia Criscuolo, Egitto ellenistico e altri scritti di storia, economia, istituzioni

Today, in Bologna, aula II via Zamboni 38 and online (17.30 CET)

Michele Faraguna, Alessandro Cristofori, and Carla Salvaterra will present and discuss the book:

Lucia Criscuolo, Egitto ellenistico e altri scritti di storia, economia, istituzioni, a cura di A. Bencivenni, M.E. De Luna, M. Mari, F. Reiter, Berlin-Boston : De Gruyter  2023 [DOI: 10.1515/9783111354262].

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LatinNOW publications

Alex Mullen’s LatinNow project (Latinization of the north-western Roman provinces: sociolinguistics, epigraphy and archaeology) have now produced three edited volumes of work on Latinization, literacy and multilingualism, all open access (and in print from OUP):

Alex adds:

The accompanying data for the newest volume can be found at https://gis.latinnow.eu/. We’d like to thank Scott Vanderbilt for his invaluable post-project work on the data for the GIS, which has been very much appreciated.

These and the other books and digital publications of the LatinNOW project are discussed in more detail at https://latinnow.eu/2023/12/05/latinnow-books/.

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Seminario Avanzato di Epigrafia Greca 2025 (SAEG IX) – Programma

È stato pubblicato il programma definitivo del SAEG IX, che si svolgerà a Roma dall’8 al 10 gennaio 2025.

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CARMEN Newsletter November 2024

The CARMEN project (Communal Art – Reconceptualising Metrical Epigraphy Network), a Horizon 2020 International Training Network, that has delivered several major workshops and seven successful PhD theses, have shared a newsletter with updates on their final year.

The CARMEN project is nearing its conclusion. It has provided a valuable opportunity for experienced colleagues, the supervisors, and the Early-Stage Researchers (ESRs) to engage in professional networking. The majority of participants were able to adhere to the guidelines set forth by the European funder, providing support for the project at the conclusion of the three-year contract period. This posed a significant challenge, as the majority of participants had no prior experience working on the Carmina Latina Epigraphica. Through the training programmes, they were able to gain expertise in non-book epigraphy, which involved fieldwork, contextualising the texts within their original discovery and installation contexts.

Full newsletter at <https://carmen-itn.eu/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/JGU_Carmen_News_5.pdf>

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ENCODING METRICAL INSCRIPTIONS

Workshop – Foggia, 14-15 Novembre

For the program and Zoom link, see Encoding Metrical Inscriptions Workshop, Foggia 14-15 Novembre.

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Appel à candidatures: aide à mobilité, CESCM Poitiers 2025

Dans le cadre de la « Maison de l’épigraphie » au Centre d’études supérieures de civilisation médiévale (CESCM, Université de Poitiers/CNRS, UMR 7302) de Poitiers, un appel à candidatures pour des aides à mobilité 2025 est ouvert (dépôt des candidatures jusqu’au 20 décembre 2024 inclus).

Cette aide à mobilité s’adresse aux doctorants et post-doctorants en histoire, histoire de l’art, archéologie, philologie ou littérature médiévale, d’universités françaises ou étrangères …. more

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Review of Crawford (2023), Diocletian’s Edict of Maximum Prices at the Civil Basilica in Aphrodisias

Michael Crawford et al. 2023. Diocletian’s Edict of Maximum Prices at the Civil Basilica in Aphrodisias. Aphrodisias XIII. Reichert Verlag Wiesbaden. Pp. xvi + 208, 35 Pl. ISBN 978-3-752-00685-8. €89.00.

Reviewed by Gabriel Bodard, University of London.

Aprodisias XIII. Diocletian’s Edict of Maximum Prices at the Civil Basilica in Aphrodisias. Michael Crawford. Reichert.This rich volume contains principally an epigraphic edition, with supporting information from a broad team of collaborators, of the Aphrodisias copy of Diocletian’s “Prices Edict,” probably the longest ancient Latin inscription known to us, at well over a thousand lines of text.  Unlike some of the copies found in other Greek-speaking cities of the eastern Empire, the Aphrodisian inscription is in Latin, in fact one of the very few Latin inscriptions found in this city. Crawford et al.’s goal is not to produce an eclectic edition or reconstructed Ur-text from all copies of the Prices Edict, but to centre this, the most complete extant copy of the text. The edition is aligned to, and in cases supplemented by readings from, other copies, and the editors record differences and inconsistencies between them.

This volume is the culmination of many years’ work at Aphrodisias, with contributions by several experts and specialists within and beyond the research team. The work is informed by and feeds into scholarship in many areas, including epigraphy, architecture, the ancient economy and late antique politics. The contents are impressively inclusive, rigorous and comprehensive. An outline of the component parts follows:

  • The editor’s preface by R.R.R. Smith, series editor and director of the Aphrodisias excavations, which briefly summarises the history of scholarship on the Basilica and the Prices Edict.
  • The author’s preface by Michael Crawford, which focuses on the reconciliation of and continuing problems with the text of this and other versions of the Prices Edict.
  • A concordance of editions, by Benet Salway, UCL historian and epigrapher, which compares, chapter by chapter, the subdivision and numeration of the inscription between editions of Theodor Mommsen and William Waddington in the nineteenth century, E.R. Graser’s and Crawford and Joyce Reynolds’s in the twentieth, and the current edition; essential, as numeration and labelling are key to expressing and understanding a scholar’s interpretation of the Edict.
  • An introductory chapter on the Prices Edict by Crawford, which covers in depth the history and dating of the Edict and the inscription, the order and coverage of the Edict, many of its implications and effects, economic analysis of the text, the prices and revaluation of coinage, and some remaining puzzles (some of which have been discussed in epigraphic circles for many years). As an introduction to the edition which follows, this chapter is thorough and informative.
  • The second chapter is the “Reconstruction of the Edicts on the Basilica Façade,” by Philip Stinson (archaeologist and museum curator at the University of Kansas). This section summarises excavation history and architectural analysis, and includes wonderfully clear maps, plans and illustrations of the spatial and material context of the Prices Edict. Along with concise and solid discussion of the physical reconstruction of the inscription and its support, this entire chapter is elegantly illustrated and admirably clear; an extremely useful contribution, as well as a pleasure to peruse.
  • Chapter 3, which makes up the bulk of the volume at 90 pages, is the text and English translation of the Aphrodisias copy of Diocletian’s Edict on Maximum Prices. The use of epigraphic conventions is carefully explained, in particular the stylistic distinction between texts supplemented from other Latin or Greek fragments of the Edict, and the fact that brackets marking minor emendations, expansions or restorations in such supplements are generally omitted “in order not to burden the text.” The text of the preamble and then the tabular lists of commodities and prices are given in facing Latin and translation.
  • Chapter 4 is a list and concordance of fragments of parallel texts of the Prices Edict, sorted by chapter in the current edition.
  • Chapter 5 is an edition of two brief and fragmentary Edicts together known as the Aphrodisias Currency Dossier, much reconstructed since its first publication in the 1970s.
  • After these chapters appears a long section titled “Özet ve Dıocletıanus’un Tavan Fiyatlar Fermanı,” which is not explained in English but appears to be a translation into Turkish (by Mustafa D. Somersan, Serra Somersan and Yaşar Demiröz) of the editor’s preface and the Latin text of the Edict.
  • Appendix I is an edition, reconstructed Latin and translation into English of the Greek copy of the Edict of Fuluius Asticus at Aezani.
  • Appendix II, compiled by Julia Lenaghan, sculpture expert for the Aphrodisias excavations, is an epigraphic catalogue of extant pieces of the Prices Edict from Aphrodisias, including dimensions, inventory numbers and bibliographic concordance.
  • The end matter of this volume includes bibliography, sources of illustrations, index of Latin words and 35 plates of excellent photographic imagery of the epigraphic fragments and other context from the site of Aphrodisias.

The work of this volume is in most part a new edition of the text, meticulously reconstructed, interpreted and documented by the author and his collaborators. A complete picture of the historical, economic, political and philological interpretation of the Prices Edict and the world of the Diocletianic reforms belongs rather in (several) monographs rather than this comprehensive but purely epigraphic publications. Of course, the act of compiling and editing the text, and even more so of translating it, is an act of thorough interpretation in its own right (as observed by Eleanor Dickey [BMCR review], who tackles some of the differences between Crawford’s and other translations of some sections). Such a project is appropriately brought to completion, as here, by a scholar and a broad team who have spent decades studying this text in particular, and the epigraphy, legislation and economy of the Roman world in general.

Questions inevitably remain, including the “puzzles” listed by Crawford in Chapter 1. There are scholars working on the Prices Edict today, including both ancient (Kropff, Nieva) and modern (Mateskovic/Dujmesic, Hontvari) economists; excavations at Aphrodisias of course continue. New fragments, better readings and ongoing interpretation of the Prices Edict are and will emerge. Although our understanding, and indeed the text, of this inscription will no doubt continue to improve over time, it is hard to imagine any other work superseding this volume as the canonical edition of the Prices Edict of Diocletian for many years.

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Updates on Hispania Epigraphica Online

The Hispania Epigraphica Online team at the University of Alcalá wants to address recent concerns about HEpOl in the academic community, especially between our partners.

On the project. The University of Alcalá is committed to preserving the legacy of Professor Joaquín Gómez-Pantoja. Thus, the UAH and the heirs of HEpOl are working to fulfill his wishes. HEpOl is being transferred to the UAH, a process started by Joaquín himself. We will revise its contents and update the database to reflect the advances in the discipline.

On the domain. HEpOl is migrating to a server and domain of the University of Alcalá, sponsored and supported by the UAH. This process is currently underway. As a consequence, HEpOl will be inaccessible for the next few weeks. We will announce in due time the reaccessibility. We ask the scientific community for patience and apologize for the inconvenience.

On references. The migration will preserve HEpOl numbers. So, previous references will still be accurate.

On the URLs. We will provide the new URLs to all the online projects with which HEpOl has collaborated when they become available.

On legality. Regarding the legal implications, the HEpOl project will follow the explicit directives of Prof. Gómez-Pantoja in his will and the wishes of the heirs.

Should you have any doubts on Hispania Epigraphica Online, please contact us at hepol@uah.es.

We thank you all in advance for your patience and support.

Best regards,

Cristina de la Escosura Balbás
Margarita Vallejo Girvés
Jordi Pérez González
Mariano Rodríguez Ceballos
Leyre Gómez-Pantoja

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Seminario Avanzato di Epigrafia Greca 2025 (SAEG IX)

Dall’8 al 10 gennaio 2025 si terrà la nona edizione del Seminario Avanzato di Epigrafia Greca (SAEG IX) che da quindici anni costituisce per la comunità scientifica degli antichisti un’importante occasione di comunicazione, dialogo e confronto sui temi dell’epigrafia greca. 

Negli anni il SAEG ha segnato significativamente gli studi epigrafici italiani, contribuendo a creare un clima di lavoro vivace, propenso al confronto e aperto al dialogo, sempre volto a una prospettiva di crescita comune, sulla scorta dell’esempio di quelle studiose (T. Alfieri, C. Antonetti, L. Criscuolo, E. Culasso, E. Miranda) che per prime hanno ideato e organizzato il Seminario e che ancora lo animano. 

Dopo le prime due edizioni tenute all’Università di Bologna, i successivi convegni del SAEG sono stati organizzati dalle sedi universitarie di Napoli, Milano, Torino, Venezia, Roma-Sapienza e Perugia, con un ampio sforzo organizzativo che ha visto la presentazione di 263 relazioni per un totale di 23 giorni di convegno.

Nel 2025 sarà l’Università di Roma Tre a curare l’organizzazione del SAEG IX. 

Gli abstract delle relazioni orali e della sezione poster sono disponibili alla pagina: https://www.officina-igxiv2.org/saeg-ix-2025

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Call for Papers: Epigraphy.info IX. Workshop

Dear colleagues,

The ninth Epigraphy.info workshop will take place in Aarhus (Denmark) from 2-4 April 2025. The workshop will be hosted by the Past Social Network Project and the Social Resilience Lab, Department of History and Classical Studies at Aarhus University, supported by the Center for Humanities Computing, and by The Museum of Ancient Art, Aarhus University.
   The workshop traditionally brings together researchers and enthusiasts of digital epigraphy to discuss the current trends and issues of the discipline (see https://epigraphy.info/ for details of previous workshops). The meeting will include presentations and a poster session, as well as training sessions and meetings/hackathons of the existing working groups. We welcome any proposals for meeting activities adapted to a variety of formats:
• Research papers for scholars who want to present their project or results
   (a) proposals for participation in the thematic panel Social networks and epigraphy, see link for details.
   (b) on any other topic of potential interest to the community
• Posters to present news, education projects, updates on existing projects etc.
• Hands-on sessions. We are exploring different options such as hackathons and presentations of a new tool followed by training. If a group thinks it would be useful for the community, we encourage you to present a proposal. If you would like to offer more extended training, please, reach out, so we can accommodate you.


Participation:
The meeting will be planned as an in-person event but with the option to attend and discuss some parts of the programme remotely. Additionally, we may record some of the presentations and talks and make them available via the Epigraphy.info YouTube channel, as well as place the posters on the Epigraphy.info website. Presenters are welcome to upload their contributions to Zenodo and link them with the Epigraphy.info community, see Publication for details.


Bursaries:
We are currently investigating the option to provide financial assistance to PhD students and independent researchers interested in presenting in person at the workshop. Please indicate in the submission form if you would like to be considered. We will provide updates on the Epigraphy.info websites in November.


Publication:
In accordance with the FAIR principles, Epigraphy.info as a community strongly supports the publication of all contributions on Zenodo under the umbrella of the Epigraphy.info community, which allows assigning unique DOIs to the publications and enhances their accessibility. We encourage the participants to publish their presentations, posters and other content on Zenodo and link them to the Epigraphy.info community.


We are currently investigating publishing the most interesting and conceptually challenging contributions as an edited volume dedicated to a) social networks and epigraphy, or more broadly, b) digital approaches in epigraphy. Interested contributors should be able to deliver a draft of their paper by mid-2025 for the volume to be published in 2026 as part of the Aarhus Studies in Mediterranean Antiquity, Aarhus University. Please indicate your interest in the attached form.


Submit your proposal:
If you would like to participate in the Epigraphy.info workshop in Aarhus, please fill in the attached form and upload your abstract (250 words for papers and posters, 500 words for hands-on sessions) before November 15th 2024. The Steering Committee will notify selected participants and circulate a provisional program by the end of December.


Proposal submission form


We are very excited to see you in the happiest city in the world (according to the Happy City Index in 2024). If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact the Epigraphy.info Steering Committee (info@epigraphy.info).


On behalf of the Steering Committee and the local organisers,


Petra Hermankova

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