Epigraphy
Chief periods and nationalities

The study of inscriptions supplies an important contribution to the history of many lands and peoples. In some cases, as in Egypt and Mesopotamia, it forms almost the only source of information in the absence of literary records; in others, as in Greece and Rome, it offers a most valuable supplement and comment to what is otherwise recorded.

Both Egyptian and Mesopotamian inscriptions go back to an extremely early date; it is at present uncertain which is the earlier, but both show, before 3500 BC and possibly much earlier, a complete, organised system of writing which implies many centuries of development behind it. The Egyptian hieroglyphic system, as used in inscriptions, continued without any essential change of character until Roman times, though various systems of hieratic modification were used at different times. On the famous Rosetta Stone, in the British Museum, which first gave the clue to the interpretation of Egyptian writing, hieroglyphic, hieratic and Greek versions of the same decree are given side by side. Its date is 195 BC. The Mesopotamian linear symbols developed mainly for technical reasons, into a wedge-shaped or cuneiform system, which was adopted in modified forms and applied to different languages through some thousands of years, Sumerian, Babylonian, Assyrian and Persian, until it was superseded, after the conquests of Alexander, by Greek. An independent hieroglyphic system, which also developed into various linear scripts, existed in Crete during the Middle and Late Minoan periods, from about 3000, probably, to the fall of Knossos, about 1500 BC. The Hittite hieroglyphs correspond to the period of the Hittite empire in northern Syria and Asia Minor from about 2000 to 800 BC; from it, according to one theory, arose the Cypriot syllabary, which continued in use until the 4th century BC or later.

The earliest Phoenician inscriptions known date from about the 10th century BC, and the alphabet remained in use down to the 3rd century BC. Some believe this was modified and adopted by the Greeks at an uncertain date; the earliest Greek inscriptions are generally dated in the 7th century BC.

In early times each Greek State had its own alphabet; but in the year 403 BC (the archonship of Eucleides) the Ionian alphabet, which is the one used now for Greek capital letters, was officially adopted by Athens, and soon became universal in Greece. From the various Greek alphabets the different local Italian alphabets, including the Etruscan, were derived with various modifications. The Roman alphabet was among these, being based on the alphabet of Caere, a Chalcidian colony. There are a few very early Roman inscriptions; but they do not become common until the 3rd century BC; from that time the letters took much the same forms as they preserve to the present day.

The custom of putting inscriptions in Greek and in Latin on buildings and other monuments continued through medieval times, and is still customary, classical forms being frequently imitated. The latest dated inscription in the Greek Corpus records the building of a bridge in Sicily in AD 1121. The series of Byzantine inscriptions continues practically without interruption to the present day; and Latin retains its use as a universal language in religious, public and private inscriptions.
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