Epigraphik

Epigraphik, the study of inscriptions, is a scholarly discipline that treats inscriptions as primary sources for historical, linguistic, and cultural information. It covers texts carved or engraved on durable media such as stone, metal, or ceramic, from ancient times to the present.

The aims include documenting, editing, translating, and interpreting inscriptions; establishing authorship, dating, provenance, and social or religious context; and using inscriptions to reconstruct political history, institutions, law, religion, and everyday life. Epigraphy also studies scripts and languages, paleography, orthography, and formulaic expressions.

Methods and practices include field collection, conservation, documentation, photographic measurement, and digital recording. Editions present the original text, a standard transcription, translations, and commentary. Important corpora and publications include the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum (CIL), Inscriptiones Graecae (IG), and the annual L'Année épigraphique; with the growth of digital epigraphy, online databases and digitized corpora have become common.

Interdisciplinarity: Epigraphy interfaces with archaeology, philology, history, linguistics, art history, and religious studies. It complements literary sources and provides material evidence for the dating and interpretation of sites and artifacts.

Challenges include fragmentary surviving texts, damaged or erased inscriptions, dating uncertainties, and editorial biases; scholars address these through cross-disciplinary methods and critical editions.