Bologna, 10 February 2026
Dear Colleagues,
Firstly, we would like to thank those who submitted proposals to organise parallel sessions at the
upcoming International Congress of Greek and Latin Epigraphy. This event will take place from
Monday, 30 August to Saturday, 4 September 2027 at the Belmeloro complex in Bologna. Following a
review of all the proposals, the Scientific Committee has selected 6 Closed Short Panels and 17 Open
Long Panels. These panels are in addition to the eight parallel sessions identified by the Scientific
Committee of the Congress: we would like to thank our colleagues who have kindly agreed to chair
and organise these sessions.
Apart from the 6 Closed Short Panels, which are already complete and organised, we therefore have
25 parallel sessions. A list and description of these sessions can be found on the Congress website
(https://site.unibo.it/epigrafia-greca-latina-bologna/en/panel/).
You are invited to submit proposals for individual contributions to one of these 25 sessions, or to
submit proposals for stand-alone papers on any topic. Each proposal must be in one of the five
conference languages (Italian, French, English, Spanish or German) and last 20 minutes. It must
include:
- Session number and title; alternatively, you should mark your proposal ‘free topic’.
- First and last name of the contributor.
- Email address.
- Affiliated institution.
- Title of the proposal.
- Abstract of the proposal (maximum 3,000 characters including spaces).
Proposals should be sent to Alice Bencivenni at ciegl2027@unibo.it by 30 September 2026. Following
review, the proposals will be forwarded to the chairs of the relevant sessions, who will select the
contributions in consultation with the Scientific and Organising Committees. Authors will be notified
of the outcome by 30 November 2026.
It will also be possible to submit posters dedicated to presenting projects and research results by
responding to the separate call for poster submissions, which will be issued on 30 November 2026,
with a deadline of 31 January 2027.
Participants may submit only one proposal each (with the exception of posters).
Due to the high cost of organising this Congress, participants and speakers cannot be exempted from
paying registration fees, which will be higher than those for the Bordeaux Congress.
You can find this and other organisational information on the International Congress of Greek and
Latin Epigraphy website: https://site.unibo.it/epigrafia-greca-latina-bologna/.
I look forward to welcoming you to Bologna for the XVII International Congress of Greek and Latin
Epigraphy. On behalf of myself and the Organising Committee, I send you my warmest regards.
Alice Bencivenni
Panel 07: Post-Classical Epigraphy
Epigraphies Following Those of Antiquity,
Not Necessarily in Classical Languages
Chairs: Antonio Felle, Muriel Moser-Gerber
About thirty years ago, at the 11th International Congress of Greek and Latin Epigraphy in
Rome in 1997, D. Feissel observed that “l’épigraphie de l’antiquité tardive n’est plus… le
parent pauvre qu’elle fut.” It was at this same meeting that Silvio Panciera established –
for the first time – a section dedicated especially to the Greek and Latin Epigraphy after
Constantine. Dedicated sessions for the epigraphy of Late Antiquity (disappeared in the
successive three international epigraphy congresses: Barcelona 2002, Oxford 2007, Berlin
2012), were brought back to life in 2017 in Vienna (Late Antique and Byzantine Epigraphy),
and in 2022 in Bordeaux (Epigraphic traditions after the reign of Diocletian).
The approach taken at the 1997 epigraphy congress in Rome, namely Greek and Latin
Epigraphy after Constantine, appears to consider the beginning of Late Antique epigraphy
as coinciding with the inception of a Christian Empire: Silvio Panciera also opened to way
to regarding the religious element as a particularly important aspect of the epigraphy of
this period. This has helped in deconstructing the obsolete and misleading artificial
separation of the Early Christian inscriptions from the general frame of Late Antique
epigraphy, as eƬciently synthesized also by A.E. Cooley: “The rooting and growth of
Christianity in the Roman Empire was the catalyst for many significant changes in political
ideology, society, and culture that together created the distinctive character of the period
now known as ‘late antiquity’” (Cooley 2012, p. 228). In addition, it is beyond doubt that
the Early Christian epigraphy of Late Antiquity constitutes the foundation of what may be
defined as “Christian epigraphy” proper—that is, Byzantine epigraphy in the East and
medieval epigraphy in the West. These epigraphic traditions possess little substance
outside the religious sphere, as can be observed in Coptic, pre-Islamic, and early Islamic
inscriptions, as well as—within Europe— in Anglo-Saxon and Gothic examples.
Indeed, not only the rise of Christianity, but also migrations and the consequent post-
classical cultures – also in languages other than Greek and Latin – did not only transform
the world of Classical Antiquity, but also the usual epigraphic habit. New contents, forms
and rules were applied, other players, languages and audiences involved, new locations,
objects and contexts used. What, then, is post-classical epigraphy, and where do we find
it? This session about the epigraphic cultures of the Post-Classical world, from Late
Antiquity to the Middle Ages, seeks to oƫer a window into the rich field of late-antique,
Byzantine and Medieval epigraphic phenomena with a view to highlight the added value of
studying these “late” transformations also for the analysis of “Classical” Greek and Latin
inscriptions. We therefore invite contributions on the epigraphic habit of late-antique,
Byzantine and Medieval communities (4th to 13th centuries). Papers tracing
«transformation» in respect of Classical epigraphy, also in languages and communities
other than Greek and Latin, are particularly welcome.
Panel 23: Epigraphic Reuse
Appropriation, Erasure, and Reinscription
in Secondary Contexts
Chairs: Polly Low, Anna M. Sitz
Ancient city-states and individuals often intended the inscriptions they put up to remain
untouched and in place for the distant future, but in reality many inscribed texts were
reused – and also modified – already in antiquity. The proposed session explores
inscriptions that were recycled, not merely as spoliated building blocks, but for later
epigraphic uses: e.g., inscribed bases with secondary honorific texts for new honorees
(Moser 2017, 2023), dedications erased due to damnatio memoriae (Lefebvre 2004), civic
decrees partially removed in line with political changes (Low 2020), dedications to pagan
gods creatively modified during the period of Christianization (Sitz 2023), etc. Rather than
being simply a ‘cheap’ way to produce new inscriptions (urban prefects in late antique
Rome were more likely to reuse statue bases than lesser oƬcials: Machado 2017), the
decision to reuse, reinscribe, or selectively erase a pre-existing inscription was bound up
with issues of memory, appropriation, and engagement with the past.
This session brings together papers on epigraphic reuse in diƫerent time periods,
potentially dealing with material from the Archaic period through Late Antiquity, in Latin,
Greek, or other ancient languages. Although the phenomenon of reusing and modifying
inscriptions was well known to ancient viewers (cf. Dio Chrysostom’s complaints about
metagraphe, the reinscribing of statue bases), the study of reuse continues to provide fresh
insights on the following larger topics:
The epigraphic habit: not only the production of new inscriptions, but also reuse,
modification, and erasure were a part of the epigraphic habit and contributed to
epigraphic landscapes in cities, sanctuaries, and necropoleis. Rather than being of
secondary importance in comparison with studying the original text on the stone,
such later erasures and modifications are critical evidence for the roles that
inscriptions played in ancient communities.
The mnemotic role of inscriptions: the addition of a new text to an older inscribed stone
was not a neutral decision but made certain claims about the past (and the present).
Likewise, rasurae did much more than simply remove information or ‘erase’
memory. Instead, they invite the viewer to reflect on the purpose and process of
erasure. We may even speak of creatio memoriae instead of damnatio memoriae
(Omissi 2016).
The makers and viewers of inscriptions: who was able to appropriate inscriptions for
their own later use? How sophisticated was their engagement with the original text?
Who were the intended viewers? And what does this tell us about epigraphic literacy
in various periods?
The making of scholarly editions: the modification of an inscribed stone sometimes
centuries after its original carving can challenge some of our habits of publishing
inscriptions, such as the dividing up of texts by time period (Sitz Forthcoming); for
example, the visual and verbal echoing of an earlier inscription in a text from
centuries later is diƬcult to capture in a corpus (cf. Moser 2023, 2026). The
application of interdisciplinary approaches, particularly from archaeology, can aid
in considering inscribed monuments more holistically across their full ‘life spans’.
As a whole, then, the papers in this session challenge us to think about inscribed texts in
new ways, as dynamic and evolving rather than static. We envision the publication of select
papers from the session in a volume to be co-edited with Prof. Muriel Moser-Gerber.
References
Lefebvre, S. 2004. “Les cités face à la damnatio memoriae: les martelages dans l’espace urbain”. Cahiers du
Centre Gustave Glotz 15: 191-217.
Low, P. 2020. “Remembering, Forgetting, and Rewriting the Past: Athenian Inscriptions and Collective
Memory”. Histos 11: 235-268.
Machado, C. 2017. “Dedicated to Eternity? The Reuse of Statue Bases in Late Antique Italy”, in K. Bolle, C.
Machado, C. Witschel (eds), Epigraphic Cultures of Late Antiquity, Stuttgart, 323-357.
Moser, M. 2017. “Reused Statues for Roman Friends: The Past as a Political Resource in Roman Athens”, in T.M.
Dijkstra, I.N.I. Kuin, M. Moser, D. Weidgenannt (eds), Strategies of Remembering in Greece under Rome (100
BC – 100 AD), Leiden, 169-181.
Moser, M. 2023. “Augustan Cultural Memories in Roman Athens”, in M. Dinter, C. Guérin (eds), Cultural Memory
in Republican and Augustan Rome, Cambridge, 375-393.
Moser, M. 2026 (Forthcoming). “Reuse of Inscriptions and Epigraphic Archaism in Roman Athens”. Journal of
Epigraphic Studies 9.
Omissi, A. 2016. “Damnatio Memoriae or Creatio Memoriae? Memory Sanctions as Creative Processes in the
Fourth Century AD”. Cambridge Classical Journal 62: 170-199.
Sitz, A.M. 2023. Pagan Inscriptions, Christian Viewers: The Afterlives of Temples and Their Texts in the Late Antique
Eastern Mediterranean. Oxford.
Sitz, A.M. Forthcoming. “The Grammar of Erasure: Some Reflections on Rasurae in Late Roman Asia Minor”.
Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik.