Also, there seem to be so many inscriptions dotted around buildings even in remoter parts, you wonder if they have all been documented by CIL?
At the time CIL was created, in the late 19th/early 20th century, people would drag up anything that connected them to the glorious Roman past. There was a huge interest on the village level, so far as I know, largely amongst the notaries, clergy, and other notables. Unfortunately, several items from CIL are "now missing", with unsure readings because the original person to record them was not really up to the task, or recorded as "incerta vel falsa" (uncertain or wrong/fake).
Much will have been missed, though, if it was on private ground where the owner did not feel like having people in (or digging around his field!); a lot of inscriptions could yet be recovered because they were walled in with the inscription facing inwards (as part of only one layer of stone). At a conference, they once showed that a whole Late-Roman town wall was full of these hidden inscriptions, though I can't for the life of me remember where this wall stands. Also, if you read the Année Epigraphique, you'll find that scores of new inscriptions emerge every year: it's one of the areas in ancient history where most new stuff can be discovered on a regular basis.
An important new addition to the resource base for working with odd bits of inscriptions is Michael Crawford's brand new Imagines Italicae.
The Imagines Italicae project, based in the Institute since 2002, was completed and published in January 2012. Its objective was to publish the surviving records of the many peoples of
Italy who spoke the languages called ‘
Italic’, which disappeared as the
Romans took control and as Latin became the common language of
Italy. Almost the only records now surviving from these peoples are the texts they inscribed and the coinages they produced. Imagines Italicae, edited by Michael
Crawford and colleagues on the project, recently published as a BICS Supplement, provides for the first time a
complete corpus of these texts, accompanied by photographs or drawings, a critical apparatus, an English translation where possible, a bibliography, and a full account of their discovery and archaeological context. It will provide the essential tool for all those working on the languages and
history of
Italy before the
Romans.
The Institute of
Classical Studies, University of
London, is pleased to announce the publication of a new three‐volume
work, Imagines Italicae, edited by M. H.
Crawford and colleagues, the outcome of a research project based in the combined
library of the Hellenic and
Roman Societies and of the Institute, beginning in 2002 and initially supported by the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council.
The empire created by
Rome underlies many of the structures of modern Europe, and that empire in turn was in its early stages the joint creation of
Rome and the other peoples of
Italy. Almost the only records left by those peoples themselves consist of the texts they inscribed and the coinages they produced. Imagines Italicae provides for the first time a
complete corpus of those texts which are in one or other of the
Italic languages, accompanied by photographs or drawings, a critical apparatus, an English translation where possible, a bibliography, and a full account of their discovery and archaeological context.
The corpus, geographically arranged, contains 982 entries in total, lavishly illustrated, some of them multiple, preceded by a substantial Introduction, and completed by an Appendix of
Italic names occurring in Greek texts, detailed Concordances, and full epigraphic indexes.
The
work is in a very real sense both that of the authors and of the 80 or so museums and libraries that welcomed the authors and helped them in every way possible, so as to enable them for the project to study and photograph their holdings; in subscribing to the
work, you will both gain access to those holdings and also support the provision to each and every one of the museums and libraries in question of a copy of the
work. It is a
work that will make it possible for the first time to understand the complex linguistic
geography of ancient
Italy and to address crucial historical questions about the religion, culture, society, economy, and institutions of the peoples of
Italy.
3 volumes,
price 276 pounds.