Epigraphy on Ceramics

Ghent, 17-18th December 2015

Rozier 44
9000 Gent
room 2.50 (second floor, click here for a plan of the building)

Organised by Wim Broekaert, Arjan Zuiderhoek, Alain Delattre, Emmanuel Duprez et Bruno Rochette

Description

Theme of the Conference

From the Bronze Age to Late Antiquity, throughout the Mediterranean Basin, inscriptions were being written or painted on ceramic objects. These texts include short administrative data, religious dedications, property indications etc. Because the inscriptions are often short, difficult to read and hard to contextualize, epigraphy on ceramics tends to remain the playing field of a small number of experts and the potential for broader research questions often fails to be recognized. This conference will highlight the importance of epigraphy on ceramics by discussing its contribution to ancient economic history, religious history and linguistics. For each of these thematic strands, we invite contributions focusing on the Greek world, the Roman world, Late Antiquity and contact zones between Mediterranean and non-Mediterranean civilizations (including e.g. the Indian and Arabian world). With this chronological and thematic approach, the conference intends to stress the relevance of epigraphy on ceramics for many disciplines in ancient history.

Objectives

Because the study of inscriptions on ceramics (contrary to monumental inscriptions) all too often experiences difficulties in being integrated in the main debates on ancient socioeconomic history, this conference will first explore the many contributions this particular type of epigraphy can make to economic, religious and linguistic history. As a synthetic volume on this subject is still missing, contributors to each strand (see above) will be asked to provide a general introduction in which they present the nature and potential of the specific inscriptions they discuss for other disciplines. It is the aim of the conference to publish a comprehensive multidisciplinary companion to the subject to open the field to ancient historians. Second, this conference explicitly intends to initiate an international multidisciplinary research platform for the analysis of inscriptions on ceramics. The organizers plan an annual follow-up, which, through conferences and smaller workshops, will continue to make this particular field of research more accessible to non-specialists.

Programme

Thursday 17th

8:30-9:00: Registration and coffee
9:00-9:30: Patrick Monsieur: Keynote

Economics

10:30-11:00: Coffee break

12:30-14:30: Lunch break

Religion

Friday 18th

Keynote: Javier de Hoz (javierdhb@gmail.com)

9:00-9:30: Coffee
9:30-10:00: Javier de Hoz: Keynote

Sociolinguistics

10 :30-11 :00 : Coffee

12:00-14:00: Lunch break

16 :00-16 :30 : Final discussion and end of the conference