Who read inscriptions? How did inscriptions function as ornaments? If they were inaccessible, did that change their meaning? And, were inscriptions, ‘like Victorian children, to be seen but not heard?’ (4).
Inspired by the idea that the presentation of inscribed texts can both encourage and deter reading, this volume examines how groups and societies in late antiquity and the Middle Ages used writing to convey meanings beyond the verbal content. Editorial work on this collection shows remarkable skill: the title, scope, rationale, and conclusions are precise, coherent and instructive, and they convey a strong sense of purpose throughout. This is greatly to the credit of the editor, Antony Eastmond, one of the most prolific scholars of Byzantine inscriptional culture, who sets out to show that the significance of inscriptions stems both from their verbal content and their physical qualities, such as script, placement, readability and visual features. The outcome is illuminating and paradigm-shifting.
The volume includes eleven exhaustive case studies, each of which has been contributed by a specialist the field:
Matthew Canepa evaluates the impact of Western Iranian royal inscriptions on their spatial, architectonic and ritual contexts under the succession of Achaemenid, Macedonian, Parthian, and Sasanian patrons. Canepa concludes that such epigraphic material expressed power through its permanence in the landscape, and that earlier traditions, particularly in the case of rock-cut inscriptions, inspired later practices by way of perpetuating (re)new(ed) habits for many centuries to come.
Ann Marie Yasin examines devotional graffiti in early Christian sacred space, defining this epigraphic practice as a ritual gesture, and a tangible interaction with the holy site. Yasin views Christian graffiti as material manifestations of religious and social behaviour, and as a reflection of collective conventions, marking space for shared action, and providing a way of inserting oneself into the community.
Jonathan M. Bloom sees the complex political and religious situation in the tenth and eleventh centuries as the main cause of repeated epigraphic mutilations and substitutions visible in Aghlabid and Fatimid inscriptions in North Africa. Bloom also posits that the careful (re)use of Latin in the former Roman province of Africa Proconsularis (modern-day Tunisia) might have influenced the subsequent development of the Egyptian tradition of Fatimid epigraphy.
Antony Eastmond focuses on the epigraphic tradition of medieval Georgia, arguing that the foundation inscriptions of the Cathedrals of Kumurdo and Ishkhani (ca AD 1000) functioned as visual objects, matching the power of icons in the Orthodox world: their theological value, their placement, visual nature, aura of readability, and, in some case, the blurring of boundaries between text, decoration and image all suggest that words in Georgian art may have been designed as art that could be read.
Alicia Walker reflects on the iconic use of writing and the intriguing presence of pseudo-Arabic inscriptions in middle Byzantine churches, using the Monastery of Hosios Loukas in Phokis, Greece as her case study. From initially being apotropaic motifs and signs of triumph over the Muslim enemy, these pseudo-epigraphs, according to Walker, changed their meaning over time, conjuring up associations with the Holy Land, and reminding the faithful of the urgency of action against the continuing subjugation of the most venerated Christian loca sancta to Muslim hegemony.
Jeremy Johns considers the overlap of real and pseudo-writing against the backdrop of the Arabic inscriptions in the Capella Palatina of Palermo, Italy. Johns situates the Arabic material in the context of the surrounding Greek and Latin epigraphy, and, more generally, of the art and architecture of the royal chapel, pointing out that the elaborate strategies of cultural amalgamation made use of both traditional and novel methods of decorating and inscribing, and of visuality in particular, as an effective means of promulgating royal policy and ideology in twelfth-century Norman Sicily.
Scott Redford examines the thirteenth-century Quaratay Madrasa in Konya, Turkey, whose eponymous founder, a highly religious, and perhaps even, holy man, used the medium of epigraphy to reveal the theology of Islam in word and ornament alike. By the strategic choice of placement, style and difficulty of the script, the patron presented an intricate epigraphic programme, inscribing texts on the portal and inside the building that gradually uncovered the mystery of ever-deeper divine knowledge.
Tom Nickson contextualizes the tetra-lingual epitaph for King Fernando III of Castile-Leon, inscribed in the royal mausoleum on the site of the Cathedral of Seville, Spain. In spite of their visual and verbal similarity, the respective linguistic variants of the epigraph convey subtle differences, and signal a language hierarchy, from the original composition in Latin, to a translation into Castilian, a new national language, which in turn served as the source of the subsequent translations of the epitaph into Hebrew and Arabic.
Ioanna Rapti explores iconographic and epigraphic elements in the decoration of the tympana of the gawit of the Monastery of Noravank, whose use of image and text seems to have been unprecedented in Armenian monumental art. Rapti attributes some of these features to the adherence to the norms of Armenian epigraphy, but also suggests that the display reflects artistic experimentation in the management of the decorative space, and that its visual intricacy carry additional contemplative and symbolic functions.
Stephania Gerevini sees the clearly visible and legible content of the early fourteenth-century epigraphic material from the interior of the Cathedral of St Lorenzo in Genoa, Italy as a means of consolidating civic identity and a historical memory of the city for the benefit of the widest spectrum of reading audiences. The subject matter, visual properties and spatial layout, according to Gerevini, all enhance the authority and official character of the epigraphic display, aiming as much at celebrating the patrons as at commemorating the origins and the early history of the city.
Sheila Blair investigates the placement of craftsmen's signatures on a range of Islamic works of art, such as ivories, manuscripts and paintings – the status-objects on which the signatures can be found, inconspicuously integrated, only under very close inspection. These inscriptions provide vital evidence for the means of self-representation among craftsmen, as well as for their social and economical standing, and the development and distribution of their workshops.
The collection as a whole significantly advances epigraphic research, while also notably departing from traditional scholarship, which has been largely dominated by positivist concerns about the factual content of inscriptions. Moreover, the volume looks across the antique and medieval Mediterranean, and beyond, including the Iranian world, Central Asia and the Indian subcontinent. In addition to this impressive chronological and geographic range, the collection deals with a broad spectrum of epigraphic media, genres, and levels of formality. This remarkable diversity yields considerable benefits: among many others, it underscores the areas of convergence and overlap in epigraphic traditions, and allows the reader to identify similarities and differences between periods and cultures.
A number of highlights emerge from such a wide coverage with the most revealing concerning the long-lasting legacy of the Greco-Roman epigraphic habits, the multitude of cross-cultural influences, and much deeper insights into the questions of multi-lingual epigraphs and the hierarchy of languages. The editor's initial premise that ‘the inscriptions are not just disembodied words that can be studied in isolation’ (2) fully justifies the decision to focus on nonverbal evidence embedded in inscribed texts. This approach establishes a more balanced view, and it serves as a strong reminder that in order for any reading of inscribed texts to be sound and accurate, it must take into consideration inscriptions as physical objects whose materiality carries meaning in its own right.
