We have selected these few examples of Egyptian inscriptions for their celebrity. Almost every Egyptian monument, of whatever period, temples, statues, tablets, small statues, were inscribed with hieroglyphic inscriptions, all generally executed with great care and finish. The Egyptian edifices were also covered with religious or historical tableaux, sculptured and painted on all the walls; it has been estimated that in one single temple there existed no less than 30,000 square feet of sculpture, and at the sides of these tableaux were innumerable inscriptions, equally composed of ingeniously grouped figurative signs, in explanation of the subjects, and combining with them far more happily than if they had been the finest alphabetical characters in the world.
Their study would require more than a lifetime, and we have only space to give a few general hints.
We have a much more accurate knowledge of Greek inscriptions than we have of Egyptian palæography. The Greek alphabet, and all its variations, as well as the language, customs, and history of that illustrious people, are better known to us. Greek inscriptions lead us back to those glorious periods of the Greek people when their heroes and writers made themselves immortal by their illustrious deeds and writings. What emotions must arise in the breast of the archæologist who finds in a marble worn by time the funereal monument placed by Athens, twenty-three centuries ago, over the grave of its warriors who died before Potidæa.
"Their souls high heaven received; their bodies gained,
In Potidæa's plains, this hallowed tomb.
Their foes unnumbered fell: a few remained
Saved by their ramparts from the general doom.
The victor city mourns her heroes slain,
Foremost in fight, they for her glory died."
The most important monumental inscription which presents Greek records, illustrating and establishing the chronology of Greek history, is the Parian chronicle, now preserved among the Arundelian marbles at Oxford. It was so called from the supposition of its having been made in the Island of Paros, B.C. 263. In its perfect state it was a square tablet, of coarse marble, five inches thick; and when Selden first inspected it it measured three feet seven inches by two feet seven inches. On this stone were engraved some of the principal events in the history of ancient Greece, forming a compendium of chronology during a series of 1,318 years, which commenced with the reign of Cecrops, the first King of Athens, B.C. 1582, and ended with the archonship of Diognetus. It was deciphered and published by the learned Selden in 1628. It makes no mention of Olympiads, and reckons backwards from the time then present by years.
Particular attention should be paid, in the interpretation of Greek inscriptions, to distinguish the numerous titles of magistrates of every order, of public officers of different ranks, the names of gods and of nations, those of towns, and the tribes of a city; the prescribed formulas for different kinds of monuments; the text of decrees, letters, etc., which are given or cited in analogous texts; the names of monuments, such as stelæ, tablets, cippi, etc., the indication of places, or parts belonging to those places, where they ought to be set up or deposited, such as a temple or vestibule, a court or peristyle, public square, etc.; those at whose cost it was set up, the entire city or a curia, the public treasure, or a private fund, the names and surnames of public or private individuals; prerogatives or favors granted, such as the right of asylum, of hospitality, of citizenship; the punishments pronounced against those who should destroy or mutilate the monument; the conditions of treaties and alliances; the indications of weights, moneys and measures.
Another early example of a commemorative inscription of which the date can also be positively fixed is that lately discovered by Dr. Frick on the bronze serpent with the three heads, now at Constantinople, which supported the golden tripod which was dedicated, as Herodotus states, to Apollo by the allied Greeks as a tenth of the Persian spoils at Platæa, and which was placed near the altar at Delphi. On this monument, as we learn from Thucydides, Pausanias, regent of Sparta, inscribed an arrogant distich, in which he commemorates the victory in his own name as general in chief, hardly mentioning the allied forces who gained it. This epigram was subsequently erased by the Lacedæmonians, who substituted it for an inscription enumerating the various Hellenic states who had taken a part in repulsing the Persian invaders. The inscription contains exactly what the statements of Thucydides and Herodotus would lead us to expect; the names of those Greek states which took an active part in the defeat of the Persians. Thirty-one names have been deciphered, and there seem to be traces of three more. The first three names in the list are the Lacedæmonians, Athenians, Corinthians. The remainder are nearly identical with those inscribed on the statue of Zeus at Olympia, as they are given by Pausanias. The names of the several states seem to be arranged on the serpent generally according to their relative importance, and also with some regard to their geographical distribution. The states of continental Greece are enumerated first; then the islanders and outlying colonies in the north and west. It is supposed the present inscription was placed on the serpent B.C. 476.
The dedicatory inscriptions on the statues at Branchidæ probably range from B.C. 580-520. The famous Sigean inscription, brought from the Troad to England in the last century, is now admitted to be not a pseudo-archaic imitation, as Bockh maintained, but a genuine specimen of Greek writing in Asia Minor, contemporary, or nearly so, with the Branchidæ inscriptions. Kirchhoff considers it not later than Olympiad 69 (B.C. 504-500).
A most interesting inscription of the archaic period is the celebrated bronze tablet, which Sir William Gell obtained from Olympia, and on which is engraved a treaty between the Eleans and Heræans. The terms of this specimen of ancient diplomacy are singularly concise. Kirchhoff places this inscription before Olympiad 75 (B.C. 480); Bockh assigns it to a much earlier date. In any case, we may regard this as the oldest extant treaty in the Greek language. It must have been originally fixed on the wall of some temple at Olympia.
A series of Athenian records on marble has been found inscribed on the wall of the Parthenon, while others have been put together out of many fragments extracted from the ruins on the Acropolis and from excavations at Athens. Of the public records preserved in these inscriptions, the following are the most important classes: the tribute lists, the treasure lists, and the public accounts.