1) Noticia de la celebración de una nueva edición de los coloquios (a través de la Prof. Charlotte Tupman, de la BES):

The British Epigraphy Society (BES) Autumn Colloquium will be held in the MBI Al Jaber Building, Corpus Christi College, Oxford, on Saturday November 21.

The theme of the colloquium is "Foreign Epigraphy" (or "Epigraphy, but not as we know it"). The programme and details on how to register (including student bursaries) can be found below.

PROGRAMME
10.30 - 11.00: Coffee & Registration
11.00 - 11.45: Dr. Elizabeth Frood (St. Cross College, Oxford) "Claiming
Space and Memory: the Development of Priestly Inscriptional Practices in Late New
Kingdom Egypt."
11.45 - 12.30: Prof. Matthew Canepa (Charleston / Visiting Research Fellow,
Merton College, Oxford) "Inscriptions, Landscape, and the Built Environment
in the Eastern Mediterranean and Iran in Late Antiquity."
12.30 Lunch
14.30 Tea
15.00 - 15.45: Dr. Silvia Ferrara (St. John's College, Oxford): "Writing in
Cypro-Minoan: Beyond Decipherment."
15.45 - 16.30: Dr. Elizabeth Solopova (Bodleian Library, Oxford) "The
Earliest Runic Inscriptions: Problems of Language and Interpretation."
16.30-16.45: Break
16.45 - 17.30: Short Reports:
Dr. Nicholas Milner (British Institute at Ankara), "New work at Oinoanda"
Dr. Ulrike Roth (Edinburgh), "Albert Rehm".
Dr. Jonathan Prag (Merton College, Oxford), "The Taormina Financial
Inscriptions"
17.30: Close

FEES AND REGISTRATION

Registration including tea, coffee, and the sandwich lunch: BES members 10.00 pounds; BES student members 5.00 pounds; non-members: 25.00 pounds.
Registration without lunch: BES members: 8.00 pounds; student members 3.00 pounds, non-members 20.00 pounds.
Booking: To reserve a place at the colloquium and a sandwich lunch, please contact the Secretary, Peter Haarer, by e-mail to peter.haarer@classics.ox.ac.uk

Bursaries: Existing student members of the BES may apply for a bursary to contribute towards the cost of attending the meeting (write to
peter.haarer@classics.ox.ac.uk with details of your expected expenses, and a brief statement of how the Colloquium will benefit your studies).


2) Anuncian también un nuevo libro de esta curiosa serie sobre la factura de inscripciones romanas:
The Making of Roman Inscriptions
Stonemason Richard Grasby (the author of "Letter Cutting in Stone: A Workbook") has produced four new studies analysing the creation of Roman inscriptions, entitled "Processes in the Making of Roman Inscriptions". Each study focuses on a different inscription from Roman Britain and costs 5 pounds. They will be on sale at the British Epigraphy Society Autumn Colloquium on November 21.

(fotos del libro y Amazon Books)

3) Así como la aparición del volumen de XCIX, 2009, de la afamada Journal of Roman Studies, como siempre con trabajos de importante base epigráfica (índice y resúmenes), en el que destaca este estudio de A. Bowman et al. (págs. 154-170), releyendo una curiosa inscripción holandesa, sobre tablilla, parece que mal leída durante casi un siglo:

A. K. Bowman, R. S. O. Tomlin and K. A. Worp: "Emptio Bovis Frisica: the ‘Frisian Ox Sale’ Reconsidered"

The article offers a re-edition of a Latin stilus tablet found in 1917 at Tolsum in the Netherlands, the region inhabited in Roman times by the tribe of the Frisii, and first published as a contract of sale for an ox. The re-edition, with readings based on new techniques of digital image capture, establishes the date of the text (a.d. 29) and shows that it does not concern the sale of an ox, but is more probably the second half of a loan-note for a sum of money now lost, between a debtor whose name is lost and a creditor named Carus (or perhaps Andecarus) who was a slave of Iulia(?) Secunda, herself perhaps the wife of a tribune of Legion V named T(itus) Cassius.

La nueva lectura se halla ya en The Roman Law Library, el interesante sitio web de Derecho Romano de Y. Lassard y A. Koptev:

THE «FRISIAN OX SALE» ( AD 29 )

(Front)

‘ [. . . from?] Carus(?) slave of Iulia Secunda which I am obliged to repay to her(?) or to whom soever this matter pertains on the day on which s/he(?) shall ask for them. Transacted on 23(?) February at . . . in the consulship of C. Fufius Geminus. Quadratus acted as interpreter (or intermediary?).’

(Back)

‘(2nd hand) Titus Cassius, tribune of the fifth legion.
(3rd hand) Miunnio(?) soldier of the unit of Batavians, of the century (or decury?) of Bonumotus(?).
(4th hand?) Caturix, slave of the said Secunda(?).’

Antes se fechaba en época de Trajano, y su interpretación anterior había dado lugar a las consabidas afirmaciones acerca del pago de tributos por los Frisios a los romanos en vacas (por ejemplo), etc. (cf. C. W. Vollgraff "De tabella emptionis aetatis Traiani nuper in Frisia reperta", Mnemosyne XLV, 1917, 341-352.

La tribu de los frisios, por entonces en la Germania Inferior, es la misma que en castellano solemos llamar frisones.

Es interesante ver la explicación del proceso por el cual, con nuevas técnicas informáticas, se ha podido llegar a redefinir mejor el texto, y a descartar bovem donde habia un quem. Aquí, en la imagen 9/9, puede verse cómo se lee finalmente la tablilla.

Examples of original and processed images, stills from the filmed sessions of the re-transcription of the Frisian "Ox" tablet, as well as a (non-final) version of the overlaid drawn text. The original edition of the text (1917) interpreted the text as a bill of sale of an ox [1]. Prof. Bowman, Dr Tomlin, Dr Crowther and Prof. Worp, looking to get a clearer reading of the date in the text, revised the original transcription; it is now interpreted as a debt acknowledgment [2], where no trace of an ox could be found...

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Otro día me referiré a la novedosa labor que está desarrollando e-Science and Ancient Documents/Centre for the Study of Ancient Documents de la Universidad de Londres, bajo la dirección del Prof. Alan K. Bowman (Oxford), que va a terminar supliendo por fin las lupas y hasta los cuentahilos que a veces tenemos que usar los epigrafistas cuando trabajamos con fotos, aunque ya nos vienen ayudando bastante los actuales programas de imágenes.