Greek Fonts Help

[Molinari]

Hello Friends,

Sorry I haven't been posting much lately.  It has been a really busy school year!  Anyway, I could use your help.  Attached is an excerpt from the London Papyrus that is translated: "How did you cross the stream of silver-eddying Acheloios, through River Ocean's wet paths?"

My question is, what are those dots below certain letters?  Is that a weird way of writing a subscript iota on early Greek manuscripts?  Needless to say, MS word doesn't appear to have this option in its Greek font pallet!

Thanks for the help,

Nick

[OldMoney]

In general usage, the letters in brackets indicate that the particular letter is not
(or no longer) present, but can be inferred from the context, whereas those with
the dots below may have some remnant, but are obscured in some manner.

For example: regarding the word "'Αχελωιου" in the text you provide, the letters
χ and ω are missing, illegible, severely damaged, etc.; whereas the letters ε and λ
may be partially present, very worn, slightly damaged, remain in outline only, etc.

I hope this helps.

Walter

Note: In most cases these letters are presented in upper-case on the original
'documents', whereas in most texts they are presented in lower-case. I have
always thought this to be a little strange, and have never fully understood the
reasons behind this convention. I would have thought that it would be better
to show the text as it appears on the original. Curious!

[Molinari]

Thank you, that answers it!

[JBF]

Those are notations for how a papyrus actually reads.  A letter in brackets is missing in the original, it may have dropped out do to scribal error, or there may actually be a hole in the text.  A dot below tends to mean their is a part of a letter there, but the reading is conjectural, or implied.  But you really should get a print of a papyrus/inscription text that will at the beginning talk about these philological notations.  I have some books, but not with me.