Inscriptiones Graecae

The Inscriptiones Graecae (IG), Latin for Greek inscriptions, is an academic project originally begun by the Prussian Academy of Science, and today continued by its successor organisation, the Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften. Its aim is to collect and publish all known ancient inscriptions from the mainland and islands of Greece.

The project was designed as a continuation of the Corpus Inscriptionum Graecarum (Corpus of Greek Inscriptions) published by August Böckh between 1825 and 1860, and as a parallel to the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum (Corpus of Latin Inscriptions) founded by Theodor Mommsen in 1847. From 1860 to 1902, it was directed by Adolf Kirchhoff. From 1902 to 1931, Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff was in control of the project; he reorganised and re-energised the IG, turning it into one of the most important series for the publication of source material in Classical studies.

After The Second World War, the project suffered from a lack of financial and motivational support. It came to a temporary halt in 1972, but was revived by the newly reformed Berlin-Brandenburg Academy in 1994.

So far, 49 fascicles have been published, some of them in several editions. The preparation of individual volumes is partially entrusted to external scholars, in which case the Berlin Academy retains the final editing. The Academy also maintains a collection of "squeezes" (mechanical paper copies) of Greek inscriptions. The project is currently directed by Peter Funke. Editors of previous volumes include Wilhelm Dittenberger, Friedrich Hiller von Gaertringen, Johannes Kirchner and Günther Klaffenbach.

All editorial texts are published in Latin, a fact that is occasionally criticised in view of the decreasing use of that language and the extra effort required from editors. Up to now, the inscriptions were published without translation, but since recently, German translations for all new volumes are available on the IG website.

Bibliography

• Reinhold Merkelbach: Überlegungen zur Fortführung der Inscriptiones Graecae. In: Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 117 (1997), S. 297–303 PDF
• Reinhold Merkelbach: Nochmals Inscriptiones Graecae. In: Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 122 (1998), S. 293–299 PDF
  (Both articles express criticism of the continuation of IG in its traditional shape)

Source of translation

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External links

• Searchable Greek Inscriptions (Packard Humanities Institute), including the complete Inscriptiones Graecae corpora
• Inscriptiones Graecae homepage (in German)
• History of the Inscriptiones Graecae (PDF)

This article incorporates information from this version of the equivalent article on the German Wikipedia.