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The Collaborative International Dictionary
Epigraphy

Epigraphy \E*pig"ra*phy\, n. The science of inscriptions; the art of engraving inscriptions or of deciphering them.

Wiktionary
epigraphy

n. 1 inscriptions collectively 2 the study or decipherment of inscriptions, especially of ancient ones

WordNet
epigraphy

n. the study of ancient inscriptions

Wikipedia
Epigraphy

Epigraphy is the study of inscriptions or epigraphs as writing; it is the science of identifying graphemes, clarifying their meanings, classifying their uses according to dates and cultural contexts, and drawing conclusions about the writing and the writers. Specifically excluded from epigraphy are the historical significance of an epigraph as a document and the artistic value of a literary composition.

A person using the methods of epigraphy is called an epigrapher or epigraphist. For example, the Behistun inscription is an official document of the Achaemenid Empire engraved on native rock at a location in Iran. Epigraphists are responsible for reconstructing, translating, and dating the trilingual inscription and finding any relevant circumstances. It is the work of historians, however, to determine and interpret the events recorded by the inscription as document. Often, epigraphy and history are competences practiced by the same person.

An epigraph is any sort of text, from a single grapheme (such as marks on a pot that abbreviate the name of the merchant who shipped commodities in the pot) to a lengthy document (such as a treatise, a work of literature, or a hagiographic prescription). Epigraphy overlaps other competences such as numismatics or palaeography. When compared to books, most inscriptions are short. The media and the forms of the graphemes are diverse: engravings in stone or metal, scratches on rock, impressions in wax, embossing on cast metal, cameo or intaglio on precious stones, painting on ceramic or in fresco. Typically the material is durable, but the durability might be an accident of circumstance, such as the baking of a clay tablet in a conflagration.

Usage examples of "epigraphy".

Arabic prosody and the Druze religion, and numerous short works on Oriental numismatics, onomastics, epigraphy, geography, history, and weights and measures.

But a lot more often, I've found that professors who see a chance to influence events outside academe will leap at it in spite of their alleged lack of interest Truth to tell, I don't know if a savant of Roman epigraphy ever got that kind of chance (at least since the days when the Empire was a going concern), but my guess is that he'd grab it, too.

Sometimes they even mean it But a lot more often, I've found that professors who see a chance to influence events outside academe will leap at it in spite of their alleged lack of interest Truth to tell, I don't know if a savant of Roman epigraphy ever got that kind of chance (at least since the days when the Empire was a going concern), but my guess is that he'd grab it, too.