Imagining Faith: Images, Scripts, and Texts of Early Christian Inscriptions from the Roman Near EastPapyrologica Lugduno-Batava 41Syriaca.org: The Syriac Reference PortalThe National Endowment for the HumanitiesThe International Balzan Prize FoundationDavid A. Michelsoncbsc_adminRecord added to Zotero bycbsc_adminSyriaca.org: The Syriac Reference Portalhttp://syriaca.org/cbss/CAVIDPRP/tei
Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
2024-08-15-04:00
Born digital.
CREATED: This bibl record was autogenerated from a Zotero record.JamesWolfeImagining Faith: Images, Scripts, and Texts of Early Christian Inscriptions from the Roman Near Easthttp://syriaca.org/cbss/CAVIDPRPhttps://www.zotero.org/groups/a_comprehensive_bibliography_on_syriac_studies/items/CAVIDPRPhttps://www.zotero.org/groups/4861694/items/CAVIDPRPKlaasBenteinYasmineAmoryNovel Perspectives on Communication Practices in Antiquity: Towards a Historical Social-Semiotic ApproachLeidenBrill2023131-145Papyrologica Lugduno-Batava 41This paper discusses the semiotics of scripts in a set of Greek, Syriac, and Syriac-Greek inscriptions from the provinces of Roman Syria, suggesting that their scripts open a dialectic through their non-linguistic features, allowing their audiences to engage with the inscriptions as multimedial, communicative objects. In fact, for some, it was the script itself that conveyed the primary meaning, not the text qua language. These scripts-as-images engaged in and reaffirmed generic and institutional expectations in both their local and supra-local contexts. Exploring these dynamics, the chapter examines two data sets as case studies. The first is comprised of Syriac inscriptions that replicate Greco-Roman visual typologies of civic, monumental inscriptions of the late Roman empire. The second set includes the acrostics ΧΜΓ and ΙΧΘΥΣ as well as acclamations from the Christian liturgy that appear in Greek inscriptions. A subset are tituli picti that appear on late Roman amphora produced and shipped from Syria.
The central argument is that the choice of script and its use in inscriptions from late antique Roman Syria was itself a communicative act that could express belonging within a community through adhering to a set of norms and expecta-tions associated with a certain stratum of that community, be it civic, religious, or a confluence of the two. The norms and expectations of Christian communities in late antique Roman Syria contributed to the development of a particular epi-graphic habit that was functional in both Greek and Syriac inscriptions.
Wolfe, James. “Imagining Faith: Images, Scripts, and Texts of Early Christian Inscriptions from the Roman Near East.” In Novel Perspectives on Communication Practices in Antiquity: Towards a Historical Social-Semiotic Approach, edited by Klaas Bentein and Yasmine Amory, 131–45. Papyrologica Lugduno-Batava 41. Leiden: Brill, 2023.
James Wolfe, Imagining Faith: Images, Scripts, and Texts of Early Christian Inscriptions from the Roman Near East, in Novel Perspectives on Communication Practices in Antiquity: Towards a Historical Social-Semiotic Approach, ed. Klaas Bentein and Yasmine Amory, Papyrologica Lugduno-Batava 41 (Leiden: Brill, 2023), 131–45.Byzantine SyriaIV-VII CEbilingualisminscriptions [Greek]inscriptions [Syriac]sociolinguistics