Epigraphica Attica

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Many years of experience in the difficult work of restoring and interpreting Greek inscriptions have given Benjamin Meritt an ideal preparation for telling the layman what Greek epigraphy is all about. Since most of his work has been done in connection with Athenian inscriptions, his story has been told very largely with reference to the documents of Athens. He first describes what must be done when a piece of inscribed marble is taken from the ground and before a reliable text can be copied from it onto a sheet of paper. Most inscriptions have been so badly broken that the fragments of any one original document must first of all be identified as belonging together, and then they must be given proper relative position, whether they actually join or not, before a complete text can be read. The interpretation of a broken document also necessitates restoration in places where the stone is lost. The accomplishment of this delicate task requires a fund of ingenuity and a background of scholarship that challenge comparison with the finest pieces of deductive reasoning in any of the other sciences.