EPIGRAPHIC PUZZLES.

September 17, 2003 by 3 Comments

The Institute of Classical Studies is calling for help with a couple of inscriptions they’d like to identify. The second is just three Greek letters (on an cup with “erotic representations,” true, but they don’t show you the cup); the first, however, is quite intriguing. (Via Phluzein.)

Comments

  1. Jeremy Osner says
    September 17, 2003 at 10:01 pm

    Ancient musical notation perhaps?

  2. languagehat says
    June 10, 2026 at 9:29 am

    On updating the links in the post, all of which had rotted, I looked at the “intriguing” image and found it hard to believe it’s actually an ancient inscription. In a comment at Phluzein, Teresa Nielsen Hayden said:

    Huh. I would have guessed that what they’re calling “elaborate Greek characters” were some sort of Egyptian. That first character in the lower row looks like a modified version of the hieroglyph that looks like a sideways view of a guy sitting crosslegged.

    I agree that they definitely don’t look Greek. I wonder if ICS ever got an answer?

  3. languagehat says
    June 10, 2026 at 9:39 am

    The Garrucci reference is here:

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