Summer School in Greek and Latin Epigraphy 2001

The Centre for the Study of Ancient Documents is organising, under the auspices of the British Epigraphy Society, a Summer School in Greek and Latin Epigraphy in Oxford to be held from the 2nd to 12th July 2001. The Directors of the Summer School, Dr Alison Cooley (Latin Epigraphy) and Dr Graham Oliver (Greek Epigraphy), have organised a comprehensive programme of practical instruction in epigraphy together with a series of specialist workshops, seminars and lectures on epigraphical subjects.

The Summer School is intended to provide students with an opportunity to understand the principles of reading and editing and producing their own preliminary editions of inscriptions based on autopsy and the use of squeezes and/or photographs. The technical facilities and staff at the Centre for the Study of Ancient Documents will be available to provide students with guidance in the application of digital imaging analysis to inscriptions. The programme offers a unique opportunity for those who wish to understand and learn the techniques, both old and new, currently used by epigraphists.

Practical guidance will be delivered in workshop sessions and will provide basic instruction in either Greek or Latin epigraphy. The central focus will be on inscriptions on stone. Among the principal issues to be considered are abbreviations and chancellery language, dating and calendars, principles of editing (lemmata, apparatus criticus and commentary), findspots and archaeological contexts of inscriptions, nomenclature and prosopography. Tuition will be based on common core texts in either Greek or Latin. So that the participants in the course scan gain first hand experience of working directly with an inscription, every student will be assigned a specific text or part of a text for study and present the results of their work at the conclusion of the course. Supervised epigraphic study time will be timetabled to allow the students to prepare their own material and to use the resources of the CSAD squeeze and photographic collection and the Ashmolean Library and epigraphical collection.

The range of epigraphical topics covered in the specialist workshops and seminars is broad and a reflection of the strength and diversity of epigraphical research in Britain. The programme covers inscriptions on coins (Dr C. Howgego and Dr H. Kim of the Ashmolean Museum together with Dr J. Williams and Mr A. Meadows), pottery (Professor R. Osborne), instrumentum domesticum (Professor M. Steinby), writing tablets (Dr A. Bowman), leges sacrae (Professor R. Parker and Dr D. Obbink), Christian inscriptions (Dr M. Handley), epigraphical manuscripts (Dr W. Stenhouse) and architectural inscriptions (Dr J. Coulton). Additional sessions on information technology and on Greek personal names will be led by Dr C. Crowther and Dr E. Matthews respectively. Many of the workshops and seminars will involve hands-on experience of inscriptions; the Ashmolean Museum offers students the chance to study objects in its numismatic and pottery collections.

To provide a broader context for the detailed study of inscriptions in workshop and seminar sessions, a series of evening lectures by scholars of established international reputation will run throughout the course, covering aspects of epigraphy important to historians of different periods. Individual lectures will be dedicated to the Greek (Professor J. K. Davies), Hellenistic (Professor S. Mitchell), Roman (Professor M. Crawford) and Late Antique (Mrs. C. Roueché) worlds.

The Epigraphy Summer School hopes to emulate the success of the Papyrology Summer School held in Oxford in July 1997. Excellent facilities are on offer to students; residential participants will be able to enjoy meals and college accommodation in student rooms at Christ Church at a charge of £350.00, while non-residential students will be charged £50.00. Places on the Summer School are limited; the organisers hope that successful applicants will be able to apply to their home institutions for grants to cover the cost and travel expenses. A small number of bursaries may be available and applicants should indicate whether they would like to be considered for one when they submit their applications.

Update: 9 November
The deadline for applications passed on 1 November, 2000. All the applications received have now been processed; applicants will be informed shortly of whether they will offered a place on the course.

Further information from: Dr A.E. Cooley or Dr G.J. Oliver, c/o Centre for the Study of Ancient Documents, 67 St. Giles, Oxford OX1 3LU

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