Stoichedon

Detail of the Sacred law concerning temple-worship on the Acropolis, EM 6794 (IG I3 4B)

The stoichedon (Greek: στοιχηδόν) style of epigraphy was the practice of engraving ancient Greek inscriptions in capitals such that the letters were aligned vertically as well as horizontally. Texts of this form give the appearance of being composed in a grid with the same number of letters in each line and each space in the grid filled with a single letter. The majority are Attic, but it was widely used in the Greek world, and the earliest examples are from not later than the second half of the 6th century BCE; the first is perhaps the Salaminian Decree.1 It was the dominant style of inscription in Athens during the 5th and 4th centuries BCE and was the preferred style for official state proclamations. The last stoichedon text dates from the 3rd century CE and is the genaeological inscription from the Heroon of Oenoanda in Lycia.2 The idiom was less common in Latin epigraphy, a rare exception is the Sator square.

This form of inscription is of particular interest to scholars of Greek epigraphy due the chance it affords to reconstruct fragmentary texts. Few if any Greek tablets survive intact, however the language and tenor of inscriptions are often formulaic and with a knowledge of the precise number of missing letters it is possible to make an informed guess about the lost text.

See also

Notes

  1. ^ See Macus Tod, ‘’A Selection of Greek Historical Inscriptions’’, 1933, for dating.
  2. ^ RP Austin, op cit. p.117.

Bibliography

  • R. P Austin, The Stoichedon Style in Greek Inscriptions, Oxford, 1938.
  • A. G. Woodhead, The Study of Greek Inscriptions, 1967.

Wikipedia content modification information:

  • This page was last modified on 7 November 2008, at 01:07.

Wikipedia Authorship and Review

Wikipedia content provided here is not reviewed directly by PediaView.com. Wikipedia content is authored by an open community of volunteers and is not produced by or in any way affiliated with PediaView.com.

Wikipedia Usage Guidelines

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article on "Stoichedon".

The URL for this specific entry is:

All Wikipedia text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License. (See Copyrights for details). Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.