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| IG (Inscriptiones Graecae) | |
|---|---|
| Name | Inscriptiones Graecae |
| Language | Latin, Ancient Greek |
| Discipline | Epigraphy |
| Publisher | Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities |
| Started | 19th century |
| Country | Germany |
IG (Inscriptiones Graecae) IG is a multi-volume corpus of ancient Greek public inscriptions edited in Latin and critical apparatus, serving as a foundational reference for scholars of ancient Athens, Sparta, Delphi, Corinth, and the wider Hellenic world. The series provides authoritative texts and commentary for inscriptions from city-states, sanctuaries, colonies, and imperial provinces, and it has shaped research in fields such as prosopography, legal history, and epigraphy. Editors and contributors to IG have included figures associated with institutions like the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities, the Austrian Academy of Sciences, and the British School at Athens.
IG aims to collect, edit, and publish Greek inscriptions from the Archaic, Classical, Hellenistic, and Roman periods across regions including Attica, Peloponnese, Boeotia, Thrace, Macedonia (ancient kingdom), Asia Minor cities such as Ephesus, Smyrna, and colonial centers like Massalia and Syracuse. Volumes cover civic decrees from Athens (city), temple dedications at Delos, honorific inscriptions in Alexandria, and private epitaphs from Pergamon. The work complements corpora such as Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum and regional collections published by the École française d'Athènes and the Deutsche Archäologische Institut.
The project originated in the 19th century amid philological and antiquarian activity contemporaneous with figures and institutions like Theodor Mommsen, the Prussian Academy of Sciences, and the rise of national archaeological schools such as the Italian School of Archaeology at Athens. Early editors drew on fieldwork by travelers and excavators associated with expeditions led by the British Museum, the French School at Athens, and collectors including Heinrich Schliemann. Over decades IG evolved through editorial generations who engaged with scholars such as Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, Theodor Bergk, and contributors from the Austrian Archaeological Institute. Twentieth-century disruptions—world wars and political upheavals—affected production, yet recovery efforts linked to the German Archaeological Institute and postwar academies restored momentum and revised editorial standards.
IG adheres to rigorous philological principles influenced by classical scholars and institutional practices from the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities and the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland model of critical editions. Editors present transcriptions in standardized orthography, provide critical apparatus, and record findspots with reference to collections such as the British Museum, the Louvre, and the National Archaeological Museum, Athens. Editorial boards have included epigraphists trained in the traditions of August Böckh, Friedrich Ritschl, and later specialists affiliated with universities like Humboldt University of Berlin and Université de Paris (Sorbonne). Collaboration with prosopographers and numismatists from institutions such as the American School of Classical Studies at Athens ensures cross-disciplinary utility.
The IG corpus is organized into series and fascicles by geography and inscription genre: volumes treat regions like Attica, islands such as Lesbos, and provinces including Asia (Roman province). Important fascicles include collections of Athenian decrees, the epigraphic monuments of Boeotia, and corpora of theatrical and religious inscriptions from cities like Epidauros and Delphi (ancient site). Individual volumes are cited by established sigla used in scholarship on texts edited for publication in series comparable to the Sylloge Nummorum Graecorum. Editors often release supplements and revised editions to incorporate new squeezes, photographs, and readings from excavations by teams from the Italian School of Archaeology in Rome and the Netherlands Institute at Athens.
IG employs methodologies including diplomatic transcription, restoration of lacunae, epigraphic dating using letter forms and onomastic evidence, and apparatus recording variant readings from squeezes, manuscripts, and earlier editions. Conventions reflect practices of critical editions exemplified by scholars like Richard B. Hatzopoulos and institutions such as the British Epigraphy Committee. Each entry typically notes provenance, dimensions, letter-cutting style, and publication history with cross-references to republished texts in journals like the Bulletin de Correspondance Hellénique and the Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik. Restorative conjectures are signaled with brackets and abbreviations consistent with international epigraphic norms used by the International Association for Classical Studies.
IG is indispensable for research in prosopography—linking individuals attested in inscriptions to narratives in works by Thucydides, Herodotus, and Plutarch—and for studies of institutions such as the Athenian boule and festivals like the Panathenaia. Archaeologists, classicists, historians of law, and philologists consult IG when analyzing monuments connected to figures like Pericles, Cleisthenes, Alexander the Great, and later magistrates under Hadrian. Citations to IG appear across disciplines in publications by presses including Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press, and journals like Classical Quarterly and Hesperia. Its data underpin digital prosopographies, corpora of honorific decrees, and comparative studies involving the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum.
Recent decades have seen integration of IG content into digital projects and databases run by institutions such as the Packard Humanities Institute, the Epigraphic Database Heidelberg, and the Digital Atlas of Roman and Medieval Civilizations. Initiatives link scanned plates, squeezes, and metadata to searchable entries interoperable with resources like Perseus Digital Library and the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae. Collaborative work with the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities supports online catalogues and efforts to encode texts in TEI/XML, facilitating computational analysis, GIS mapping of findspots, and linkage to museum collection records in institutions like the National Archaeological Museum, Athens and the Pergamon Museum.
Category:Epigraphy