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The Early Ionic Alphabet

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2013

Extract

Mr. Petrie's excavations at Naucratis, in the first season (1884–5), threw new light on many branches of classical archaeology: and a full share has fallen upon epigraphy. That science, indeed, has acquired new facts which not only form an important addition where additional evidence was most needed, but also necessitate a modification of certain theories which have hitherto been regarded as certain and fundamental. It is difficult, though not impossible, to reconstruct a portion of the foundations without injuring the edifice built thereon. But this attempt must be made, if we would neither ignore newly discovered material, nor allow its discovery to shake our confidence in the whole complicated structure of facts and theories that constitutes the science of epigraphy.

In the chapter on the inscriptions which was incorporated with Mr. Petrie's Memoir, the present writer endeavoured to give to the earliest records of dedication their true interpretation, and to assign to them what seemed their due place in the history of the Greek alphabet. But, with another season's work in prospect, it appeared premature to do more than this, or to draw general conclusions which further discoveries might again modify.

Information

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1886

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