The Inscriptions from the Artemision at Ephesos

Cooperation within the future project »Temenos and Territorium«

Since April 2019 the interdisciplinary future project, financed by the FWF and housed at the OeAI, »Temenos und Territorium. Economic power and social significance of the Artemision in the Roman imperial period and beyond«, (ART_TE) has been pursued at the OeAW. Lilli Zabrana (Archaeology, Architecture, Coordinator), Verena Fugger (Late Antiquity, Archaeology, Religious History) and Pedro Gonçalves (Geoarchaeological Analyses and Interpretation) are concentrating, together with Vera Hofmann (Ancient History, Epigraphy), on questions regarding the spatial visualisation of the temenos and territorium of the Artemision, its economic power and administration, as well as the post-Roman processes of transformation.

Potential of the inscriptions

Although the inscriptions provide immediate and detailed information about this complex of themes, the cultural-historical potential of this at times demanding and often only fragmentarily preserved type of source has not yet been exhausted. The epigraphic sub-project carried out by Vera Hofmann at the Research Group »Epigraphy« is dedicated to filling the gaps in this research: the relevant inscriptions, when possible, will be examined on site in Ephesos and at the British Museum in London, or in Vienna by means of the available squeezes. Insciptions which are not yet published will appear in the series of articles, »Neue Inschriften zum Artemision«, whereas the already-published inscriptions that are relevant for the overriding issues of the project will be prepared for publication in the series »Tituli Asiae Minoris« (VI 1): they will not only be translated for the first time, extensively commented upon and contextualised, but when possible the original conditions of reception and the later fate of the inscription carrier should also be reproduced.

Contribution to a common monography

Underpinned by this essential foundation and by the evidence of the ancient authors, Vera Hofmann will dedicate herself in the concluding co-authored monograph primarily to the following complex of themes:

• The borders of the sanctuary and its territory (with the aid of boundary stones and survey documents)
• Media and inventory (with the aid of inscriptions on statue bases as well as dedications and donations)
• Administration of the sanctuary (on the basis of documents of the Roman hegemony, civic decrees, neopoioi inscriptions etc.)
• Agricultural usage of the temple lands and properties (on the basis of diverse types of inscriptions)
• Processes of transformation (with the aid of the Hellenistic citizenship decrees published in the area of the sanctuary, lists of donors, and neopoioi inscriptions)