Inscriptions is the name given to records, not of the nature of a book, which are engraved or inscribed on stone, metal, clay, and similar materials. Since ancient documents committed to such destructible materials as papyrus, parchment, or paper have largely perished, inscriptions on harder materials are in many cases the sole sources of our knowledge of ancient history and of early languages; and, even when MSS. have been preserved by copyists, inscriptions, which preserve the original forms of the letters, are of supreme palæographical importance. All the books of the Phœnicians, Sabeans, Etruscans, Babylonians, Assyrians, Numidians, and Iberians have perished, and hence a considerable portion of our knowledge of early oriental history is derived solely from inscriptions. A very large number of inscriptions are mortuary epitaphs. Others, usually the most important, are records of the events in the reigns of kings. Others are dedications of altars, temples, or aqueducts. Many are of a religious character, recording donations to temples or in honour of the gods. Others are commercial contracts, banking records, receipts for taxes scratched on potsherds, scribblings on walls (graffiti), imprecations, and inscriptions on seals, gems, or vases. Probably more than 150,000 inscriptions are known, and a vast literature has accumulated around them. They are, however, usually classed, not by their subjects, but according to the language in which they are written, with a subsidiary chronological arrangement. The chief classes are Semitic, Greek, Latin, Runic, Cuneiform, Egyptian, and Indian.
Semitic Inscriptions.—The oldest inscription in the Phœnician alphabet is the dedication of a bronze vessel, found in Cyprus, which belonged to the temple of Baal Lebanon, and is now in the Bibliothèque National at Paris. It was written in the reign of Hiram, king of the Sidonians, and may be assigned to the end of the 11th century B.C. or the beginning of the 10th. Of somewhat later date, about 890 B.C., is the Moabite Stone, which contains a record of the chief events in the reign of Mesha, king of Moab, including his war with
Ahab. It is now in the museum of the Louvre at Paris. In the same collection is a long inscription on the black basalt sarcophagus of Eshmunazar, king of Sidon, assigned to the close of the 5th century B.C. Among other important Phœnician inscriptions are a sacrificial tariff found at Marseilles; an 8th-century inscription from Nora, in Sardinia; the dedication of a bronze altar by Yehaumelek, king of Gebal; and numerous inscriptions of the Phœnician kings of Cyprus, one of them a bilingual, which gave the key to the Cypriote writing (see PHŒNICIA). In the same Phœnician alphabet is the Hebrew record in the tunnel which brought the water under Ophel to the pool of Siloam. It is assigned to the reign either of Hezekiah or Manasseh in the 7th century B.C. We have also a fragment of an inscription from Herod's temple at Jerusalem, and others from tombs near Jerusalem, which are earlier than the siege by Titus, and numerous early inscriptions from Jewish cemeteries in the Crimea, at Aden, Venosa, Arles, Tortosa, and Rome. At Palmyra there are more than a hundred inscriptions dating from the 1st to the 3d century A.D., but mostly written in the reign of Zenobia, and there are others in many of the museums of Europe. A Palmyrene inscription was found in 1878 at South Shields near the Roman wall. See PALMYRA.
At Nabûs there is a Samaritan inscription, written in the reign of Justinian, containing a version of the Decalogue. The most interesting Arabic inscription is one in Kufic characters inscribed with gold letters on blue-glazed tiles running round the Qubbet-es-Sakra, or Dome of the Rock, at Jerusalem, the great mosque erected by the Calif Abdalmalik in the year 72 A.H. The Nabathean, or early Arabic alphabet, is used in numerous inscriptions on the rocks at Sinai, and also in the Hauran, one of which dates from the reign of Herod the Great. From the neighbourhood of Aden come a large number of inscriptions in the South Semitic alphabet; and there are two early Ethiopic inscriptions dating from the 4th and 5th centuries A.D. at Axum, in Abyssinia. At Haji-abad and Nakhsh-i-Rustam, near Persepolis, are a number of inscriptions of the Parthian and Sassanian kings. In one of them Sapor I. records his victory over the Emperor Valerian and the Roman army. These inscriptions are written in a script derived from the Aramean, and exhibit the oldest form of the Pehlevi alphabet. At Si-ngan-fu, in China, is an inscription written partly in Syriac characters and partly in Chinese, dated in the year 781 A.D., and recording the introduction of Christianity into China by the Nestorian missionaries.
The Corpus Inscriptionum Semiticarum, a splendid and exhaustive work begun in 1881 by the French Academy under the editorship of M. Renan, will, when complete, include all the Semitic inscriptions in photographic fac-simile. The most generally useful book dealing with Semitic inscriptions is Schröder's Die Phönizische Sprache (1869), which contains 325 of the most important. Others will be found in Gesenius, Monumenta Linguae Phœniciæ (1821), and in the Corpus Inscriptionum Hebraicarum. See PHŒNICIA, MOABITE STONE.
Greek Inscriptions.—The oldest Greek inscriptions hitherto discovered are the mortuary records from the island of Santorin (Thera) in the Ægean, which may belong to the 8th and 9th, or even to the 10th, century B.C. The earliest inscriptions to which a definite date can be assigned are the records cut on the knee of one of the colossal statues at Abu-Simbel, near the second cataract of the Nile, by Greek mercenaries in the service of Psammetichus, king of Egypt. They date from the end of the 7th or the beginning of the 6th century
B.C. These are followed by the records on the bases of the statues which lined the Sacred Way leading to the temple of Apollo, at Branchidæ, near Miletus. They are all earlier than the Persian war, and are assigned to the 6th century B.C. Of about the same date is the celebrated Sigæan inscription from the Troad, now in the British Museum. Of the 5th century is the long and important inscription of Lygdamis, found by Sir C. Newton at Halicarnassus, which belongs to the time of Herodotus. After the Persian war Greek inscriptions became more numerous. The most interesting, from an historical point of view, is that inscribed on the trophy erected at Delphi by the Greeks to commemorate the defeat of the Persians at Plataea. It is now in the Hippodrome at Constantinople, where it was placed by Constantine. Another inscription of historical interest is the dedication to the Olympian Zeus of a bronze helmet, which formed part of the spoils taken at the battle of Cumæ in 474 B.C., when the naval power of the Etruscans was shattered by Hiero I., king of Syracuse. It was found at Olympia by Sir W. Gell, and is now in the British Museum (see ETRURIA). It was the practice of the Greek states to affix copies of treaties to the walls of their temples. Several of these have been preserved. They are mostly between Athens and her allies, and belong to the 5th and following centuries. The earliest which we possess is a treaty between the Eleans and the Heræans, which is assigned to the middle of the 6th century B.C. It is engraved on a bronze tablet which was hung in the temple of Zeus at Olympia, and is now in the British Museum. To the 5th century belong the interesting records of the battles fought by the Athenians at Drabescos and Potidæa; also a list, now in the Louvre, of the Athenian citizens who fell in Cyprus and Egypt in the year 460 B.C.; several enumerations of the treasures deposited in the Partienon; and detailed accounts relating to the erection and cost of the Erechtheum at Athens. The foregoing are the most important Greek inscriptions of the early period. Those of later date are extremely numerous. One of the most interesting, written in Greek hexameters, was discovered in 1879 at Brough in Westmorland. It is in memory of a Syrian youth who is believed to have perished during the campaign of Septimius Severus against the Caledonians in the year 209 A.D. It is now in the Fitzwilliam Museum at Cambridge.
It is estimated that 20,000 Greek inscriptions are known to scholars. More than 10,000 have been published by the Berlin Academy in the Corpus Inscriptionum Græcarum, of which the first two volumes, edited by Böckh, appeared in 1828 and 1833; the third, edited by Franz, in 1853; and the fourth, edited by Kirchhoff, in 1856. Kirchhoff, Köhler, and Dittenberger have edited the Corpus Inscriptionum Atticarum, of which the first volume appeared in 1873. The chief historical inscriptions have been published in a handy volume by the Clarendon Press at Oxford, edited by E. L. Hicks, under the title A Manual of Greek Historical Inscriptions (1882). The dialect inscriptions are given in Cauer's Delectus, and fac-similes of the inscriptions most valuable for palæographical purposes by Rühl, Inscriptiones Græcæ Antiquissimæ (Berlin, 1882). For the beginner in Greek epigraphy, Rühl's Imagines Inscriptionum Græcarum (Berlin, 1883), a cheap and useful little book, and Reinach's Traité d'Épigraphie Grecque (Paris, 1885) can be recommended; see also E. S. Roberts, An Introduction to Greek Epigraphy (Camb. Univ. Press, 1888). See table at ALPHABET, Vol. I. p. 187.
From Cyprus we have a number of Greek inscriptions in a very ancient pre-alphabetic character, which is usually designated as the Cypriote syllabary, and is believed to be related to the scripts of Asia Minor and Northern Syria, such as the Carian, the Lycian, and the Hittite, which are known to us only through inscriptions. The most important of these is a long Lycian inscription assigned to the 5th century B.C., found by Sir C. Fellowes at Xanthus, which is now in the British Museum. A number of Carian inscriptions, usually recording the visits of travellers, have been found in Egypt, chiefly at Abydos and Abū-Simbel. The Hittite inscriptions, which are written in a hieroglyphic character not yet deciphered, are engraved in Wright's Empire of the Hittites (1884). The Vannic inscriptions from Armenia are written in a form of the cuneiform character. See HITTITES.
Latin Inscriptions.—Between 60,000 and 70,000 Latin inscriptions are known. The oldest probably date only from the 3d century B.C. Of the early inscriptions those from the tombs of the Scipios, now in the Vatican Library, are of extreme interest. These, together with several of the oldest Latin inscriptions, are printed in the second appendix to Roby's Latin Grammar (1872), and are engraved in fac-simile in Ritschl's Priscæ Latinitatis Monumenta (1862).
Latin inscriptions are couched in a style of their own, consisting of regular epigraphic formulæ, with conventional modes of expressing names, paternity, tribe, country, domicile, illegitimacy, adoption, naturalisation, and with abbreviated designations of status for freemen, freedmen, slaves, children, as well as of dignities and functions of all kinds in all the various grades of official life, military, civil, and sacerdotal. There are also conventional formulæ for epitaphs; and others are employed for edicts, dedications to the gods, inscriptions on buildings, temples, aqueducts, and statues, as well as sortes, execrations, and theatrical tessaræ. Besides formal inscriptions there are numerous graffiti scribbled on walls, such as those found at Pompeii, which have a literature of their own. As a specimen of the way of interpreting an ordinary Latin inscription, we may take the first three lines of No. 4114 in the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum. It begins thus: 'TIB. CL. CANDIDO. COS. XVIR. S. F. LEG. AUGG. PR. PR. PROVINC. H. C., &c. These abbreviations are to be expanded as follows: Tiberio Claudio Candido Consuli, Quindecemviro sacris faciundis, Legato Augustorum duorum, pro-pratore Provincie Hispanie Citerioris, &c. Mortuary inscriptions, which are extremely numerous, usually begin with some stock formula, such as D. M. S. (Dñs Manibus Sacrum) or H. S. E. (Hic sepultus est), and end with a prayer or pious wish, such as O. S. T. T. L. (Opto sit tibi terra levis). The Eugubine Tables (q.v.) form the chief monument of the Umbrian dialect. There are about 5000 Etruscan inscriptions, which have an extensive literature of their own. See ETRURIA.
A complete collection of Latin inscriptions has been undertaken by the Berlin Academy, with the title Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, under the editorship of Mommsen, Hübner, and others. Begun in 1863, this great work already extends to 15 quarto volumes, without reckoning supplements. The best book for a beginner is W. M. Lindsay's Handbook of Latin Inscriptions (1898) or Cagnat's Cours d'Épigraphie Latine (Paris, 1889). The most complete collection of the dialect inscriptions of Italy—Etruscan, Umbrian, Oscan, and Menapian—is Fabretti's Corpus Inscriptionum Italicarum (2 vols. 1867-77), with several supplements. Die Umbrischen Sprachdenkmäler, edited by Aufrecht and Kirchhoff (2 vols. 1849-51), and Mommsen's Die Unteritalischen Dialecten (1850) may also be consulted. The inscriptions in the Catacombs will be found in De' Rossi's Inscriptiones Christianæ urbis Romæ. See LATIN, GRAFFITI.
Runic Inscriptions have been found in great numbers in Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Yorkshire, Cumberland, Kent, and the Isle of Man. Among the oldest is one assigned to the 1st century A.D. on a rock near Trondhjem in Norway; and the Tune Stone, also in Norway, which is assigned to the 3d century. One of the most interesting is on a massive golden torque found at Buzeu in Wallachia. This is a relic of the invasion of the Danubian provinces by the Gotls in the 3d century. At Collingham, in Yorkshire, is a Runic inscription in memory of King Oswin, who was murdered in 650 A.D., and there is another at Bewcastle in memory of King Alcfirth, who died in 670. At Barnspike, in Cumberland, there is a rock with a long inscription recording the treacherous slaughter by Robert de Vaux, a Norman knight, of Gillies Bneth, owner of the lands of Lanercost. The cross at Ruthwell (q.v.), near Dumfries, contains a portion of Cædmon's poem on the crucifixion.
The best collection of Runic inscriptions is by G. Stephens, The Old Northern Runic Monuments of Scandinavia and England (3 vols. 1866-84). A selection of the more important will be found in the Handbook of the Old Northern Runic Monuments (1884), by the same editor. See RUNES, OGAMS, SCULPTURED STONES.
American Inscriptions.—In Greenland, on the shores of Baffin Bay and Davis Strait, a few genuine Runic inscriptions have been discovered. They probably date from the 11th and 12th centuries, and were doubtless executed by Icelandic colonists or explorers. Records, variously conjectured to be Runic, Punic, Celtiberic, or Numidian, have also been found in the United States, notably on the Dighton Rock in Massachusetts, in the island of Monhegan off the coast of Maine, in the Grave Creek Mound in Virginia, and elsewhere. They prove, however, on examination, to be either natural markings on the rock, or the half-effaced pictorial records of Red Indian tribes, or even inscriptions by early European colonists. Very different are the numerous inscriptions on the walls of the palaces and temples in the ruined cities of Yucatan, Honduras, Mexico, and Guatemala. They are written in unknown characters, which appear to constitute a system of hieroglyphic or pictorial writing, akin probably to that of the Aztec MSS., which as yet have been only imperfectly deciphered.
The Cuneiform Inscriptions, from which the contemporary annals of Babylonia and Assyria have been deciphered in recent years, form by themselves a vast department of study. The oldest may date from about 3000 B.C. One of the most notable is the great historical inscription of Darius Hystaspes, engraved on the perpendicular face of a rock, 400 feet above the plain, at Behistun, in Persia. It contains a thousand lines of writing, in three languages, Persian, Proto-Medic, and Semitic Babylonian. Not only is it of immense historical importance, giving an authentic record of the events of the reign of Darius, but it is of great interest as having furnished the clue by which the cuneiform writing was first deciphered. Among other cuneiform inscriptions may be enumerated the annals of Sargon from Khorsabad; the account of the campaigns of Sennacherib, engraved on a colossal bull at Koymjik; the inscription of Samas-Rimmon, son of Shalmaneser, a contemporary of Ahab and Jehu; the inscription of Shalmaneser II., giving an account of the capture of Damascus; the long historical inscriptions of Tiglath-pileser I., of Sargon I., and of Esarhaddon, and the account of the Egyptian campaign of Assurbanipal, besides the inscription of Khammurabi, king of Babylon, which is older than the Exodus, of Urukh, of Naram Sin, of Nebuchadnezzar, of Nabonidus, his successor, and the extremely interesting inscription on the tomb of Cyrus. See ASSYRIA, BABYLONIA, BEHISTUN, CUNEIFORM.
The chief collection of cuneiform inscriptions is The Cuneiform Inscriptions of Western Asia (5 vols. folio, 1861-70), edited by Sir H. Rawlinson and E. Norris. Many of the most interesting of the cuneiform and
Egyptian inscriptions are translated in the more accessible volumes of the Records of the Past.
Egyptian Inscriptions.—The oldest Egyptian inscription to which a date can be assigned is one of Sent, a king of the second dynasty, who is believed by Mariette to have lived about 4700 B.C. This venerable record is now among the treasures of the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford. The historical inscriptions of the 18th and 19th dynasties are the most numerous and interesting. The records of the Asiatic campaigns of Thothmes I. and Thothmes III., of Seti I. and Rameses II., are all at Thebes. They are older than the Exodus, and constitute the chief materials from which the history of ancient Egypt has been reconstructed. Two of the faces of the obelisk called Cleopatra's Needle, now on the Thames Embankment, bear the name of Thothmes III., who first erected it; on the other two sides Rameses II. has caused his own name to be inscribed. On the wall of a temple at Karnak we have an account of Shishak's invasion of Judæa in the reign of Rehoboam. One of the latest of the Egyptian inscriptions is the Rosetta Stone, a trilingual record in Greek, hieroglyphic, and hieratic characters, engraved on a block of basalt. Its interest arises from the fact of its having afforded the clue which enabled Young and Champollion to decipher the Egyptian writing. See EGYPT, HIEROGLYPHICS.
Indian Inscriptions are extremely numerous. Many of them are grants to temples, engraved on copper plates. The oldest and most interesting are the edicts of Asoka, the great Buddhist king, who reigned over Northern India soon after the invasion of Alexander. There are seventeen versions of these edicts, two engraved on pillars at Delhi and Allahabad, and the rest on rocks in various parts of Northern India, from Orissa in the east to Gujarat in the west. Of later date are the inscriptions in caves, topes, and temples. There are also old Pali inscriptions in Burma, Java, and Ceylon.
The best collections of Indian inscriptions are in the Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum, edited by Cunningham (1877); the Archæological Survey of Western India, edited by Burgess (1874-78); the Elements of South Indian Palæography, by Burnell (1878); and Müller's Ancient Inscriptions in Ceylon (1883). The best guide to Indian palæography is Holle's Tabel van Oud en Nieuw Indische Alphabeten (Batavia, 1882).
See ALPHABET, WRITING, PALÆOGRAPHY, NUMISMATICS. Accounts of most of the foregoing inscriptions will be found in The Alphabet, by Canon Taylor (1883).