The literal meaning of the word “epigraphy” is “referring to inscriptions”. It is formed from the Greek "epigraph" - "inscription". There are several areas of its application. For example, modern epigraphy is a collection of inscriptions that are in logical connection with the subject environment. It can be signs, door signs, signs, labels. Modern epigraphy is not the name of a scientific discipline, but an object of study in linguistics. We will be interested in something completely different - historical.
What studies epigraphy
There are many categories of written historical sources. When studying them, one cannot do without auxiliary historical disciplines, which make available to scientists a whole arsenal of methods of the most diverse sciences. There are many such objects, and their number increases with the complication of the classification of sources.
One such discipline is epigraphy. This is a section of historical science that studies the inscriptions on monuments of the past made of solid material. Stone, bone, metal, wooden, clay products are of interest to epigraphy in the event that they contain scratched, embossed or chased inscriptions. The fact is that the mechanical effect on the material (engraving, cutting text on a wooden board) gives the monument important distinguishing features. They largely depend on the nature of the material, surface treatment and writing instrument. For example, the wedge-shaped appearance of the Mesopotamian written signs is determined by the method of their application: with a pointed reed or wooden stick, the characters were extruded in soft clay.
Cuneiform writing came from pictographic writing, as the texts became more complicated, scribes' “volumes of work” increased and writing speed simplified pictograms, and as a result, writing took on its characteristic appearance.
The epigraphist, connecting the apparatus of linguistics, cultural studies, art history, attributes the writing - this is the main thing - and performs the translation (if possible). The text, if it can be read, should be comprehended precisely within the framework of the established system of writing and the language of a certain era. For example, you can’t try to read the inscription of the 5th century BC. e. in the language of the X century A.D. e. Thus, issues lie in the field of intersection of many disciplines and are solved within the limits of applicability of the methods used by this science.
What can epigraphy tell about? Interesting facts related to this discipline can be collected in a multitude. Let us dwell only on a few, and we will see that epigraphy is not only important, but also very entertaining.
How ancient scribes helped scientists
In the 19th century, when studying various types of cuneiform writing, the decoders faced great difficulties: the same sign could be an ideogram, an unreadable identifier or a syllable sign, and it could also be pronounced differently. The Sumerians "invented" the cuneiform script, but many peoples who inhabited Mezhdurechye at different times used it. The Akkadians (Babylonians), having adopted the Sumerian system of signs, gave each sign-syllable a new sound. How to read the labels?
The famous library of the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal helped in matters of epigraphy. In it, among a huge number of “clay books”, a real dictionary was discovered: ancient Sumerian and Babylonian-Assyrian sound meanings were compared to ideogram signs. Probably, it was a manual for beginning scribes who experienced the same difficulties as epigraphists after more than two and a half thousand years ...
Cards on clay tablets
The inhabitants of Mesopotamia compiled not only dictionaries, but also maps. The late Babylonian world map of the 8th-7th centuries BC is widely known. e., however, it was rather an illustration of a myth and had no practical significance: it is difficult to imagine that the Babylonians by that time did not know about the existence of, for example, Egypt. The purpose of the card remains unclear.
There are much older (mid-II millennium BC) maps that do not pretend to be global, but are clearly drawn up for practical purposes.
This is a map of the royal fields in the area of the city of Nippur, as well as a plan of the city itself, which shows the temples, gardens, canals and the city wall with several gates. All objects are marked with short cuneiform inscriptions.
Scratched walls are a valuable historical source
Epigraphy is an ancient and medieval graffiti. It’s not without reason that famous Roman inscriptions are often compared with social networks - they contain everything: from always up-to-date “Mark loves Spenduzu” and “Virgula - Tertsia: you are a bastard” to the philosophical and melancholic “Once you die and become just nothing.” The walls of houses and public buildings were both message boards and political leaflets. Literacy of writers was sometimes "lame", but thanks to these inscriptions, researchers have at their disposal material related to the spoken, folk language of a distant era. It was such a “vulgar Latin” that subsequently formed the basis of modern Romance languages.
In the Middle Ages, people also liked to scratch something on the walls. Runes are famous for the inscriptions in St. Sophia Cathedral of Constantinople - probably they were left by Varangian mercenaries from the guard of the Byzantine emperor.
Rich epigraphic material is provided by graffiti on the walls of ancient Russian churches. They contain not only manifestations of self-expression ("Ivan wrote") or short prayers, but also texts containing military or political information that was relevant at the time of writing. These are reports of feuds and reconciliations of princes, serious events (for example, the assassination of Prince Andrei Bogolyubsky). Such inscriptions were made "in hot pursuit", and the information gathered from them helps to supplement and clarify the data of the annals, therefore they are extremely important.
Letters on birch bark
To date, the number of birch bark letters exceeds a thousand and continues to grow. They were first discovered in Novgorod, later found in other ancient Russian cities. These monuments testify to the widespread literacy among the urban population. Among them there are economic and business messages, reports on court cases, debt lists. Therefore, letters convey to historians the most valuable information about civil life, about socio-economic relations in medieval Russian society. For example, a message about the purchase of land and peasants: "A nod from Sinofont to my brother Ophonos. Let it be known to you that I bought before Maxim Yesher district and Zamolmosovye and peasants myself in Simovl and Khvoyne. And Maxim and Ivan Shirokiy were at the same time. ”
Among the letters there are love notes, school exercises, prayers and conspiracies. There are examples of family correspondence: “Punishment of Semyon from his wife. You would calm down [everyone] simply and wait for me. And I beat you with a brow. "
A certain Boris writes to Nastasya: “How will this letter come, send me a man on a stallion, because I have a lot to do here. Yes, send the shirt - forgot the shirt. " And immediately comes to life, ceases to be just a dry page of a history textbook the world of the distant past. And here’s a very intriguing fragment: “they came secretly with a person.” Birch bark is torn off, and no one will know this secret ...
The oldest of the found letters date back to the 11th century, the later to the 15th century, when bark was replaced as a writing material by paper, which is much worse preserved. Birch-bark letters are a window into the Russian Middle Ages, allowing you to see in history not only princes, governors and church hierarchs, but also ordinary people, and thereby make our knowledge of the past more complete.
The meaning of epigraphy
In many cases, epigraphy is the only source of our knowledge about the written heritage of a nation, such as the Etruscans, ancient Germans, Celts. And for other ancient civilizations, epigraphic sources make up the bulk of the written monuments.
In the study of antiquity and the Middle Ages, the data obtained with the help of epigraphy also prove to be irreplaceable - they can tell about aspects of life that are not known from the annals and annals. The official epigraphic monuments - dedicatory and religious inscriptions, epitaphs, texts of international treaties and legal documents are no less important.
We examined only a few examples from the huge array of monuments that studies epigraphy. A little, but quite enough to understand how great the role of this auxiliary discipline in historical science.