What were the epigraphic sources? Describe them.
Answers
Answer:
Epigraphy Slide background Epigraphy is the study of Inscriptions on Rocks, Pillars, Temple walls, Copper plates and other Writing-materials like Stones, Potteries, Metals, Palm leaves, Woods, Conch shells, Clothes, Mural paintings and Coins. It is 'one of the most fascinating' and 'instructive studies'.
The sheer profusion of epigraphic evidence – from tiny graffiti on walls or fragments of pottery, to stamps on jars, to the sepulchral inscriptions of innumerable individuals, to vast monumental inscriptions which may run to several hundred lines – creates its own problems.It would be a Herculean (and pointless) labour to work out even approximately how many Greek and Latin inscriptions have now been published; a guess of something over half a million might not be far out. Though many major projects for corpora of inscriptions have been undertaken – the great classics being the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum and to a lesser extent Inscriptiones Graecae – none ever has been, or ever could be, completed without being already out of date.