INSCRIPTIONS, documents incised on some hard or per manent material in the form of letters or other conventional signs, for the purpose of conveying some information or preserving a record. They are, therefore, to be distinguished on the one hand from manuscripts, or documents written on papyrus, parchment, paper or other more or less smooth surfaces, by means of a brush, reed or pen and some coloured fluid (see PALAEOGRAPHY and PAPYROLOGY) ; and on the other hand from pictures or reliefs in tended to convey information or to record events (see PICTO GRAPHY), though inscriptions were often combined with such pic tures or reliefs, especially in primitive times. There are also some classes of documents which are intermediate between inscriptions and manuscripts, such as writing incised with a stylus or sharp pointed instrument upon tablets covered with a thin coating of wax, or scratched upon pottery or other hard materials (ostraka). But as the forms of the letters and the character of the writing in both these cases approximate to what is found in manuscripts, they are usually considered to belong to that class of document ; but graffiti, or casual scratching on walls, rocks or fragments of pottery, are sometimes included in the study of inscriptions, be cause they often fill gaps in our knowledge, and, in early times at least, do not differ in form or character from ordinary inscrip tions. A good example is offered by the names and other records scratched by Greek mercenaries at the time of Psammetichus on the legs of the colossal statues at Abu Simbel in Egypt. As one of the earliest examples of the use of the Greek alphabet, these find their place in the history of inscriptions. Where, on the other hand, we find casual notes, as well as receipts, accounts, etc., scratched upon potsherds or ostraka, we realize that these are merely a cheap substitute for more expensive material such as papyrus, and that the study of such ostraka cannot be separated from that of manuscripts on papyrus, and really forms a branch of palaeography rather than of epigraphy.
I. Materials and Technique.—Materials. Inscriptions were commonly incised on stone or marble, on metal, or on wood (though this last material has hardly ever survived, except in Egypt), or on terra-cotta. In Egypt and Mesopotamia hard stones were frequently used for the purpose, and the inscriptions are therefore well preserved and easy to read. In Greece the fa vourite material, especially in Athens, was white marble, which takes an admirably clear lettering, but is liable to weathering of the surface if exposed, and to wear if rebuilt into pavements or sim ilar structures. Many other kinds of stone, both hard and soft, were often used, especially crystalline limestones, which do not easily take a smooth surface, and which, therefore, are often dif ficult to decipher, owing to accidental marks or roughness of the material.
The metal most commonly used for inscriptions was bronze; flat tablets of this were often made for affixing to the walls of temples and other buildings. Occasionally such tablets were made of silver or gold; and inscriptions were often incised on vessels made of any of these metals. Inscriptions on metal were nearly always incised, not cast. An important class of inscriptions are the legends on coins; these were struck from the die. (See NUMIS MATICS.) Clay was very extensively used for inscriptions in Meso potamia and in Crete. In this case the symbols were incised or impressed on specially prepared tablets when the clay was soft, and it was subsequently hardened by fire. In Greece, many in scriptions on vases were painted before firing, in that case often having reference to the scenes represented, or incised after firing; potsherds (ostraka) were often used as a cheap writing material. Inscriptions were also often impressed from a mould upon wet clay before firing, in the case of tiles, amphora handles, etc., and in these cases often supply valuable information as to the build ings to which they belong or the place from which they took their origin.
The tools used for making inscriptions varied with the material; most of them were some kind of chisel, usually with a square blade ; early inscriptions were sometimes made on hard rock by successive blows with a punch or pointed hammer. Sometimes a circular punch was used for 0 or a letter of which 0 formed a part.
Styles of Cutting. Early inscriptions, which are often amateur work, are frequently very irregular in their cutting. But in al most all examples of later work, the inscriptions are evidently cut by professionals, and there are definite styles and methods be longing to various places and periods. In Egypt, for instance, the hieroglyphs (q.v.) are carefully and delicately cut in early times, and in later periods become more careless and conventional. In Greece, the best work was done in the Sth and 4th centuries B.C. in Athens; the letters were all exact and regular in shape, with no adventitious ornaments, and were, especially in the 5th century, usually exactly aligned with the letters above and below, as well as those on each side. The result is a beauty and simplicity of effect that has never been surpassed. At that time all the strokes were made of equal thickness, but in the 4th century B.C. and later there came in the custom of holding the chisel obliquely to the surface, thus producing a wedge-shaped stroke. A similar custom in Mesopotamia gave rise to the so-called cuneiform system (q.v.). On metal inscriptions in Greece this same effect appears earlier than on stone or marble. In the 3rd century and later it becomes common to introduce apices or ornamental ends to the strokes, a custom which prevails to the present day in our ordinary capital letters. The custom of making different strokes and different parts of curves of varying thickness became common in Roman inscrip tions, which developed a monumental style of their own, varying from period to period. Inscriptions can often be approximately dated by the style of the cutting as well as by the shapes of the letters ; skill in doing this can only be acquired by a careful and minute study of originals and facsimiles.
Inscriptions vary greatly in size according to the position where they were intended to be read, their purpose, and the skill of the cutter. Some inscriptions are of great length, the longest, a state ment of accounts of the temple at Delos, under Athenian adminis tration, being nearly half as long as a book of Thucydides; and many other inscriptions approach this in length.
The hieroglyphic symbols naturally tended to be conventional ized and simplified for convenience of cutting, in accordance with the materials and tools employed. In many cases they developed from a pictorial to a linear form. It is possible that some of these linear forms may not be derived from hieroglyphs, but from purely conventional geometrical forms, such as were widely used at all periods and places as owners' or masons' marks. The tend ency of linear forms to become wedge-shaped is most conspicu ous in but as has been noticed, the same tendency oc curs in Greek inscriptions of the 3rd and end centuries B.C. and earlier in inscriptions incised on bronze.
In the north of Europe the Ogham (q.v.) inscriptions are al phabetic, and are apparently an independent invention on arbi trary lines, like the Morse code; but Runes, which were exten sively used in the same region, are derived from the Greek or the Latin alphabets.
Apart from numerals, the use of initials in the place of com plete words was not common in early times. It became, however, very frequent in Roman inscriptions, which sometimes are made up almost entirely of such abbreviations and can only be under stood by those familiar with the formulae. A list of the com monest of these will be found under ABBREVIATION. Compendia or monograms also occur in later Greek and Roman times, and become very common and very difficult to interpret in early Christian and Byzantine inscriptions.
Some kind of punctuation is often found in inscriptions of all kinds. In Greek inscriptions a vertical line or a dot, or dots, sometimes indicates the separation between sentences or words, but words are seldom separated by spaces as in modern printing, so that the text is continuous and no division of words exists. This is particularly the case with Greek inscriptions of the best period. In Roman inscriptions it was usual to separate the words by dots. In certain inscriptions a cross (+) was used to indicate the beginning of an inscription, especially when its direction was erratic. Christian inscriptions sometimes begin with a cross, which doubtless had a symbolic meaning; and a leaf or other device was often placed at the end.
The direction of the writing varies greatly in different places and times. The letters or symbols may be arranged vertically below one another, and read from top to bottom, or horizontally, either from right to left or left to right ; they may also be ar ranged in a kind of pattern—in which case their order may be indeterminate. or = a wandering or c'ar'ved line. or !eft to and right to le : -- - _ _ -= el t ::. _ r 017 _ an 0I in long) Mc = =:-: a - -:: _ _ F clan. read from right to le _ ea _ _..:. _ - _ --- - - = - _ = ns follow the same direction.. Bu: :he : - _ ^ _ _ = _ = :0 right regular in Greece of .= _ . _ :: - _ _ = - -- a = in = adopted by the r. _ -- _ _ opean s, : - - _ - The letters or = : - s -_ f a: a in the = -- = Lirecuon the writinz. as a wnc-_ 3. The Position or Place Of :- tic a_= upon their purpose or L-_ : _ - ; ??n_ _ -_ : _ _ , have a Lire c t :Lon to the sculptures. _ = _ =,- - _ -- which are associ ated, they often for:: _ - o pa : - - - -. to = i . ba c kgr o un d vacant spaces between. . _: _ : _ __ esfie cffaliy in Mesopotamian are cut r_ : across the figures without . to .-_ =- --_ __ _ _ _ _. In .:e Greek or Roman work it is _ - _. to cu:: xscon reia:ive to a statue or relief upon the :.. _ _ _ this is moue_:ed . ..it short in scriptions such as c e _ :: = ss or sip a :ores are often placed in some s position upon the work itself. In the case of painted vases, the inscri dons relative to the subject represented are __ _, .- painted; : : _edication.s and other in scriptions are often y. c:sed after :he :-se has been _ ed.
In Egypt, inscripuc-s were inscribed or painted upon the inner walls of tombs . w h _ -.- er referred to religious belief or ritual, or to the hone= _ _; : vc - = n of the deceased; they were intended for his _ _ __ : _ : 3 convenience _fence tither than for the information of others. so as to pe-t r: o_:e his familiar surround ings, not to make him in the memory of his successors. The information which we _erive such = cnntions is invaluable to us; but such was no: the intention with which they were made.
On the other hand, inscriptions which e intended to be seen by the public and to perpetuate a record of even: s . or to supply useful information. were..- us ally placed in places of common resort, above all in :e _ _ _ a- ; sacred precincts. Sometimes they were cut on convenien: rock faces, sometimes upon the walls of temples or other build:- Most :_.:'y the slabs of marble (stelae), stone, meta' or _ _ter mate- upon which the inscrip tions were incised were s_: :n convenient positions to be read, in any places of public resort. This was the method of publication of all laws, decrees and official notices, of treaties and contracts, of honours to officials or private citizens, of religious dedications and prescriptions of ritual. Inscribed tombstones were set up over graves, which were usually placed along the chief roads leading out of a town. the most familiar example being the sacred way from Athens to Eleu_:s. Inscriptions commemorative of tories or other great were only in exceptional cases erected upon the spot: more c:: _- such memorials were set up in some great religious centre such as Delphi or Olympia. But boundary stones were necessar_:.: :a red on the line which they defined.
Both Egyptian and Mesopotamian inscriptions go back to an extremely early date: it is at present uncertain which is the earlier, but both show, before 35o0 B.C. and possibly much earlier, a com plete, organized system of writing which implies many centuries of development behind it. The Egyptian hieroglyphic system, as used in inscriptions, continued without any essential change of character until Roman times, though various systems of hieratic modification were used at different times. On the famous Rosetta stone. in the British Museum. which first gave the clue to the interpretation of Egyptian writing, hieroglyphic, hieratic and Greek versions of the same decree are given side by side. Its date is 195 B.C. The Mesopotamian linear symbols developed mainly for technical reasons. into a wedge-shaped or cuneiform system. which was adopted in modified forms and applied to dif ferent languages through some thousands of years, Sumerian, Babylonian, Assyrian and Persian, until it was superseded, after the conquests of Alexander, by Greek. An independent hiero glyphic system, which also developed into various linear scripts, existed in Crete during the Middle and Late Minoan periods, from about 3000, probably, to the fall of Cnossus, about I Soo B.C. The Hittite hieroglyphs correspond to the period of the Hittite empire in North Syria and Asia Minor from about 2000 to Boo B.C. ; from it, according to one theory, arose the Cypriote syllabary, which continued in use until the 4th century B.C. or later.
The earliest Phoenician inscriptions known date from about the loth century B.C., and the alphabet remained in use down to the 3rd century B.C. It was modified and adopted by the Greeks at an uncertain date; the earliest Greek inscriptions are generally dated in the nth century B.C.
In early times each Greek State had its own alphabet ; but in the year 403 B.C.• (the archonship of Eucleides) the Ionian alpha bet, which is the one used now for Greek capital letters, was officially adopted by Athens, and soon became universal in Greece. From the various Greek alphabets the different local Italian alphabets, including the Etruscan, were derived with various modifications. The Roman alphabet was among these, being based on the alphabet of Caere, a Chalcidian colony. There are a few very early Roman inscriptions; but they do not become common until the 3rd century B.C. ; from that time the letters took much the same forms as they preserve to the present day. The custom of putting inscriptions in Greek and in Latin on buildings and other monuments continued through mediaeval times, and is still customary, classical forms being frequently imitated. The latest dated inscription in the Greek Corpus records the building of a bridge in Sicily in A.D. II21. The series of Byzantine inscriptions continues practically without interruption to the present day ; and Latin retains its use as a universal lan guage in religious, public and private inscriptions.
Methods of Dating.—It is often possible to date an in scription approximately by the style of the lettering, or even by the alphabet used. Thus at Athens the Ionic alphabet was adopted in place of the early Attic alphabet in the archonship of Eucleides, 403 B.c., according to a decree proposed by Archinus. But the change was already in process in private inscriptions, and even in official documents Ionic forms are sometimes found earlier. Inscriptions are dated in various ways, mostly by giving the name of a king, magistrate or priest. In the case of kings, they only give an approximate date, unless the year of his reign is given also. But in the case of most independent cities, the date is given by the name of an annual magistrate, and thus the year is precisely indicated. At Athens, the name used was that of the Eponymous Archon, and as an almost complete list of these has been drawn up from inscriptions and other sources, this means of dating is quite satisfactory. The custom of dating by Olym piads, which is familiar to us from later Greek and Roman writers, was rarely used in early Greece, except in connection with athletic victories. Many inscriptions are dated from various local eras, often based upon historical events, such as the founda tion of a town or festival, the organization of a province, or even the visit of an emperor. The number of these eras in later times, especially in Asia Minor, becomes very bewildering. In Attic decrees, and some others, it was also usual to give the day of the month.
In Greek inscriptions of the Roman period the year of the emperor is defined by the number of his consulate, or other indi cations or titles, as in the corresponding Latin inscriptions. In later times, the dating is commonly by "Indiction"; but as this only gives the number of the year within the 15-year period, but leaves that period undefined, such dating is very inconvenient except for merely temporary use. In the Eastern empire the date from the creation of the world (5 so.? B.e.) is sometimes given; but the date of the Christian era is hardly ever used.
Purpose of Inscriptions.—Inscriptions, as above defined, may be roughly divided into two main classes : those in which the inscription was subservient to the use or purpose of the object on which it was inscribed, or at any rate had a direct relation to that object—for example, the name of the owner or the record of dedication to a god—and those in which the inscription existed independently for its own sake, or for the sake of the information which it recorded, and the object on which it was inscribed was either made for the purpose, as a slab of marble or plate of bronze, or was made use of, as in the case of a convenient wall or the surface of a rock, or even a potsherd. The walls of build ings are often covered with such inscriptions, especially if they are in a conspicuous or convenient position, and so offer an obvious means of publicity.
For us, accustomed as we are to a vast mass of books, news papers and other printed documents, it is difficult to realize the extensive use and great convenience assigned to inscriptions in ancient times. Not only were public announcements of all sorts, such as we should make known by advertisements or posters, thus placed before the public, but all kinds of records and enact ments—codes of law and political decrees; regulations for all matters, civil and religious; accounts and contracts, public and private ; treaties between states ; records of public and private benefactions and dedications, and all matters of administration; honours to the living and to the memory of the dead. Many of these were intended to preserve for all time the records which they contained ; but others must have been of only temporary interest. It seems, therefore, the more remarkable that they should have been incised on permanent material such as bronze, marble or stone—and incised in the first instance, with a care and perfection of technique which have led to their survival to the present day, so as to preserve for us invaluable evidence as to the life and institutions of the people who made them. Tem porary and permanent value are thus often combined in the same inscription. For instance, an Athenian citizen, visiting the Acro polis or the Market Place, could satisfy himself at first hand as to treaties or decrees of the people, public accounts or state income and expenditure. And at the same time these documents preserved for all time much history, both social and political.
Relative Inscriptions.—Inscriptions having a direct relation to the object, or representation, on which they are inscribed, vary greatly in their contents. Those relating to picture or relief chronicles of the victories or exploits of kings, as in Egypt and Mesopotamia, serve as a record of the events, and help to inter pret the scenes. Such inscriptions are not common in Greek or Roman work ; but frequently, especially in early Greek times, and on vases, the names of persons and even of objects are written beside them for the purpose of identification, and sometimes a speech issues from the mouth of a figure. On the carved wooden chest of Cypselus, of about 600 B.C. hexameter verses were written, curving about among the figures, and giving a description of each scene. The bases of statues and reliefs often had inscrip tions cut upon them for identification and record. This was par ticularly the case with honorary statues and tombstones. In other cases, where there is an evident relation between the artistic re presentation and the inscription, the figures are subordinate and seem merely to illustrate the text, as when a treaty between Athens and Samos has a relief at its head representing the god desses Athena and Hera clasping hands, as representatives of their respective cities. In other cases, the arms or device of a city is carved on an inscription, almost like a seal on a document. In all these cases the figures and the inscription are part of a common design, whether carried out by the same hand or not. But in the case of owners' marks or names cut on vases or other objects, or of the dedication of such objects, the inscription is not necessarily contemporary; it may indeed be misleading, as in the case, mentioned with disapproval by Cicero, of using again old Greek statues and placing new dedicatory inscriptions on them in Roman times; for instance, one of the statues of Athenian knights of the sth century B.C. placed at the entrance of the Acropolis, had a later inscription cut on its base to make it serve as an equestrian statue of Germanicus, probably in 18 A.D. when he visited Athens. In Egypt and Mesopotamia also it is not unusual to find the name of a later king or official cut upon an earlier work.
Independent Inscriptions.—The majority of inscriptions are of independent value and interest, the object on which they are cut being either provided for the purpose or utilized as con venient and suitable. Such inscriptions may be classified as (a) Religious and (b) Political and Social. The distinction between the two is not always easy to draw; for in almost all ancient civilizations religion was a part of the established service of the State, and was under public control, or at least was closely bound up with political administration. It follows that many inscrip tions relating to religious matters take the form of political de crees or state documents, and therefore might, especially as far as form is concerned, be included in either category; but it is usually possible to classify them according to their contents and intention.