Call Number:

C1308

Repository:

Princeton University Library: Manuscripts Division

Extent:

• 1 box
• 0.2 linear feet

Language:

English

Preferred Citation:

Identification of specific item; Date (if known); Collection of 18th-Century Notes on Classical Epigraphy and Numismatics, Box and Folder Number; Special Collections, Princeton University Library.

Date:

circa 1740-1800 (inclusive)

Form:

Research notes -- 18th century.

Abstract:

Consists of an anonymous German-speaking scholar's manuscript drafts, research notes, extracts from 17th- and 18th-century printed books (identified by author and title), transcriptions of Roman inscriptions, documents, and other materials pertaining to ancient inscriptions and coins.

Epigraphy is the study of inscriptions, and more specifically, the deciphering of ancient inscriptions.The term is derived from the Classical Greek epigraphein ("to write upon, incise") and epigraphē ("inscription").

The collection consists of an anonymous German-speaking scholar's manuscript drafts, research notes, extracts from 17th- and 18th-century printed books (identified by author and title), transcriptions of Roman inscriptions, documents, and other materials pertaining to ancient inscriptions and coins. Text and transcriptions in German, Latin, and Greek. Discussions of numismatics are chiefly about Roman sestertium, but other coinage is mentioned as well, including the Greek tetradrachm. The papers include a letter of 12 August 1743 from Georg Christoph Kripner, from Pettau. The place name corresponds to the ancient Roman settlement of Poetovio and the modern Ptuj, Slovenia. It is perhaps significant that the inscriptions include some from Poetovio.