Project Goals

• first, we will explore which categories of inscriptions, for which group of recipients (gods, Romans, Hellenistic kings, local elites) and in which time periods influenced local topography the most;
• second, we will investigate how did the spread of the epigraphic habit introduce movement into the static landscape. Statue bases, grand pillars, and walls upon which inscriptions were carved had fronts and backs and a preferred orientation, and so did the documents inscribed upon their several flanks. The location of documents must have therefore encouraged viewers and readers to perform certain actions, such as standing still, lingering, walking on and around, so that the ‘access route’, far from being a mere physical space, would have carried semantic weight in its own right;
• third, by approaching it from an art history perspective, this project will investigate the aesthetic potential of different categories of inscriptions in order to reveal the way in which inscriptions might have had an impact on the perception of space. In this contexts, the important aspects will be the material of inscriptions (bronze, marble, limestone), colours and decorations which have hitherto only been cursorily examined by scholars. This approach will reveal the interplay between image, text, and its architectural surrounding; 
• fourth, the project will reveal how inscriptions divided and organized space.

The ongoing changes within public space, urbanization and the urban layout itself must have had an enormous impact on the epigraphic habit located within civic space, and therefore, we will explore: 

• the potential influence of the landform and sanctuary’s layout on epigraphic culture, by focusing on sites situated in hilly areas (Thermon), those located on plains (Olympia), by the coast (Epidauros) and on small islands (Kos);
• during its longue durée, public space of almost every city was rearranged, overbuilt, divided, and sometimes even razed. Another challenge for this project is to trace how new constructions added to existing ones (for example, how the erection of stoai that are characteristic for the Hellenistic period and Roman agoras) interacted with the epigraphic habit. Did newly added monuments and inscriptions disrupt the overall reading of older texts? Did old and new inscriptions cooperate or compete with each other? How did these rearrangements of civic space affect the local epigraphic habit? From this, another question follows which binds together the two main research foci of the project;
• how did the city’s historical background influence the mutual relations between epigraphic culture and urban space?