| CSAD Newsletter 9, Winter 2002 |
At the invitation of the Oxford Archaeological Unit (OAU), the Centre provided consultancy services to the Zeugma 2000 Archaeological Project for epigraphical finds from the rescue excavations during the summer of 2000 necessitated by the completion of the Birecik Hydroelectric Dam. The generous funding for the Zeugma project provided by the Packard Humanities Institute allowed the OAU to deploy a full range of modern technologies in the rescue excavations. Extensive use was made of digital photography to record finds as they emerged and to refer them to off-site experts for identification. On the basis of a digital photograph sent directly from the excavation to CSAD, Charles Crowther was able to identify and prepare a text and translation of an important new inscription of Antiochus I of Commagene for a press release to accompany a site visit by a Turkish Government Minister on the day after its discovery on 21 August. Dr. Crowther visited Zeugma between 23-28 September to study all the inscriptions found during the season's work.
The Centre's epigraphic consultancy continued during 2000/2001 with the identification of a fragmentary mosaic inscription as part of a previously unknown wedding hymn composed in the style of Nonnus.
A two-day Colloquium on the Monumentum Ephesenum, organised under the auspices of the Centre by Barbara Levick, Alan Bowman and Michael Crawford, was held at Christ Church on October 1-2, 1999. One of the main aims of the Colloquium was to prepare a revised edition of the text of the inscription, which records the Roman Customs Law for the province of Asia. The Colloquium also heard a series of papers on central issues in the interpretation of the text. It is planned that all of this material, together with an English translation and an attempt to render the underlying Latin version of the Greek text, will be incorporated into a first English-language edition of this remarkable inscription. The publication, which is being edited by Barbara Levick and Michel Cottier, is at an advanced stage of preparation and will inaugurate a new OUP series of Oxford Studies in Ancient Documents.
Making paper squeezes of the lex portorii provinciae Asiae inscription from Ephesos in Selçuk Museum, 20 September 2000
The Austrian Institute's generous loan of its latex squeeze of the inscription, which was digitised for the Colloquium, allowed participants to verify and augment current readings of the text. Revision of the text was carried a stage further in 2000 when Charles Crowther and Michel Cottier obtained a permit from the Turkish Ministry of Culture with the support of the British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara to visit Selçuk Museum. A thorough re-examination of the inscription between 14-22 September resulted in a number of new readings and a more systematic record of the punctuation and palaeography of the inscription. A complete set of paper squeezes was made and a new set of black and white and digital photographs taken. This material has been added to the Centre's epigraphical archive and is available to visitors for consultation.
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