New Archaic Inscriptions

Abstract

Many Archaic inscriptions have been found since the revision of L. H. Jeffery's Local Scripts in 1990. This chapter presents a selection of some 50 new Attic Archaic inscriptions and some 25 from the Attic-Ionic islands and the Doric islands of the Cyclades. The implications of the new finds for our knowledge of scripts, dialects, vocabulary, topography, and religion are drawn out. The remarkable early evidence for extensive literacy among shepherds and goatherds in Archaic Attica, and the early dedications in both Attic and Boeotian dialect and script from the sanctuary of Zeus on Mt Parnes, are particular highlights.