INSCRIPTIONS AND THEIR USES IN ANCIENT LITERATURE: A CONFERENCE
DEPARTMENT OF CLASSICS AND ANCIENT HISTORY
UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER
25-26TH JUNE 2009
Inscribing written documents on permanent media such as bronze and stone was among the most distinctive and enduring practices of Greek and Roman antiquity. The extant material evidence of inscriptions offers a huge body of material with which to investigate the ancient deployment of the written word in both public and private contexts. But it provides only part of the evidence: ancient Greek and Latin literary texts also offer insight into the deployment and interpretation of inscriptions. Ancient literary authors, both poets and prose-writers, discussed and quoted inscriptions (both real and imaginary) as ornamental devices; as alternative voices to that of the narrator; to display scholarship; to make points about history, politics and morality; and for a whole range of other reasons.
This conference aims to explore the possibilities which the literary record of ancient inscriptions offer both to those interested in understanding ancient attitudes towards inscriptions and to those interested in exploring the broader relationship (and overlaps) between epigraphical and non-epigraphical modes of expression from a range of literary, historical and epigraphical angles.
Booking
If you would like to attend the conference please complete this form [link below]. There is a conference fee of £30 (which includes tea, coffee and lunch on both days). The deadline for registration is 31st May 2009.
- Inscriptions - booking form (, 27 KB)
- Inscriptions poster (, 8,588 KB)