Attic inscriptions in UK collections (AIUK)

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Inscriptions on stone are the most important and numerous category of written document created by the inhabitants of the ancient city of Athens that has survived through to the present day. Of the over 20,000 such inscriptions dating from the 7th cent. BC to the 3rd cent. AD that are extant, around 1% (ca. 220) are in British collections, mostly (ca. 163) in the British Museum (BM), but including also other collections, such as the Ashmolean museum, Oxford, and the Fitzwilliam museum, Cambridge, private collections, and the British School at Athens. Most of the inscriptions are records of decisions of the citizen Assembly and other bodies, financial accounts, leases, dedications to the gods and funerary monuments. Many of them are decorated with relief sculpture, and they are a resource of the first importance for scholars and students as well as potentially engaging monuments for visitors to the museums and collections where they are located. Generally speaking, however, these inscriptions have suffered from neglect. The last systematic edition of the Attic inscriptions in the BM dates from 1874, and it is for the most part this edition that is the basis for the museum's current online catalogue. Since 1874 the landscape has been completely transformed, not only by the accession of new inscriptions to the museum's collection, but by the progress of scholarship. For example, thousands of Attic inscriptions have since been discovered, with far-reaching implications for our understanding of inscriptions already known; this includes in many cases new fragments of inscriptions in the BM. 1874 predates even the first editions of the authoritative corpora of Attic inscriptions (IG I and II), published in the 1870s-1890s, which set their study on a systematic footing, and which have themselves long been overtaken by second and third editions. We propose a two-pronged approach to this material designed to make it accessible in an up-to-date fashion to scholars, students and the general public. Central to this approach is Attic Inscriptions Online (AIO), a website launched in 2012 which publishes annotated English translations of Attic inscriptions, together with supporting academic papers (AIO Papers). First we propose to publish new editions of the inscriptions in a series of 17 AIO Papers each of which will cover an individual collection, or in the case of the BM a category of inscriptions (e.g. decrees, dedications, funerary monuments). Based on the most up-to-date scholarly bibliography, supplemented by fresh autopsy of the stones, and supported by photographs, the AIO Papers will contain new editions of the inscriptions, together with textual notes, translations and commentaries. The main mode of publication will be online on AIO, where the Papers will be available to view and download without charge, but hard copies will also be published. This will transform the utility and accessibility of this material to scholars. Second, entries including translations and photographs will be published on the main AIO site, with notes aimed at the user without good knowledge of Latin and Greek, including school students and museum visitors. At the same time we will engage with the curators of collections to make the translations and information about the inscriptions on AIO available to the public, both via online catalogues and directly to museum visitors in real time. This will include advising and assisting with preparation of e.g. display boards on which there will be automatic links to AIO material, via the British Museum's mobile web-platform, or via QR codes which will enable direct access to AIO on mobile phones. Materials will be developed, designed to enhance and facilitate teaching and learning based on the Attic inscriptions in the UK by school students, both virtually and via visits to the collections, stored in a section of the site specially designed for the purpose, following testing by teachers collaborating on the project.