African Writing Systems - Professor Ayele Bekerie introduces the various writing systems of Africa including Ancient Egyptian, Meroitic and Ethiopic. Petroglyphs, pictographs, syllabic and alphabetic types.
Akkadian Cuneiform - John Heise explains the cuneiform writing system on clay tablets, the language, the grammar. Some texts examples with transliteration and explanation are presented. Bibliography.
American Society of Greek and Latin Epigraphy - A non-profit organization whose purpose is to further research in, and the teaching of, Greek and Latin epigraphy in North America. The Society fosters collaboration in the field and facilitates the exchange of scholarly research and discussion, both in the public forum and in published form.
Basic Linear B Syllabary - Clear .gif images of the basic characters.
Basque and Linear B - First describing how Ventris and Chadwick showed Linear B to be an early written form of Greek, the article claims that it could equally well represent Basque.
British Epigraphy Society - An independent 'chapter' of the Association Internationale d'Epigraphie Grecque et Latine. Aims, constitution, committee, events, news, jobs and prizes.
Byzantine Paleography - Resource for manuscripts and for Greek transcriptions.
Celtic Inscribed Stones - A study by University College London of all non-Runic early mediaeval inscribed stones in the British Isles and Brittany. Scope, researchers, and online database.
Center for Epigraphical and Palaeographical Studies - Research facility for the study of Greek and Latin inscriptions and manuscripts in the United States. Its purpose is to foster the study of inscriptions and manuscripts and promote research opportunities for those interested in these primary sources of information for the ancient and medieval world.
Centre for the Study of Ancient Documents - Oxford University's epigraphical archive, which includes one of the largest collections of squeezes (paper impressions) of Greek inscriptions in the world. Broad coverage of early Greek inscriptions, Attic epigraphy and the Hellenistic world, as well as Chios, Samos, Priene, Rhodes, and Samothrace.
Cornell Greek Epigraphy Project - This Cornell University project aims to make available computerized texts of as many Greek inscriptions as possible, from all areas and periods. Project aims, history and staff.
Cretan Writing - Description, history and images of Cretan writing, from pictographic to syllabic.
Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative - Translations of cuneiform tablets dating from the beginning of writing, ca. 3200 BC, until the end of the third millennium BC.
Dead Sea Scrolls Project - From the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago. Site is very scholarly, with a long article about the so-called "Yahad" claim.
Earliest Writing Found - The earliest examples of writing may have been discovered in Pakistan, according to archaeologists working on the Harappa project. BBC News report.
Encyclopædia Britannica - A short introduction to Linear B
Epigraphical Museum of Athens - Established in the ground floor of the building of the National Archaeological Museum, it comprises a collection of Attic inscriptions and also a collection of inscriptions from other districts of Greece.
Epigraphy - Encyclopædia Britannica describes the body of inscriptions from the earliest civilizations and their decipherment.
Hekatompedon Inscription Reconsidered - Topographical and social study of the so-called Hekatompedon inscription (IG I2, 4). The paper focuses on the reasons behind the inscription and gives a hypothesis on the every day situation in this area on the Acropolis.
Images of Orality and Literacy in Greek Iconography - Covering the Fifth, Fourth and Third Centuries BCE, a collection of images (with some explanatory text) that may be used in studying how the Greeks conceived of their invention and assimilation of their technologies of writing.
Inscriptions from the Land of Israel - Project of the University of Virginia to create a searchable database of all the inscriptions from Israel from c.330 BC to 614 AD. Inscriptions from Beth She'arim currently available.
Lexicon of Greek Personal Names - Research Project of the British Academy, whose aim is to collect and publish with documentation all known Ancient Greek personal names, drawn from all available sources, within the period from the earliest Greek written records to approximately the sixth century CE.
Library of Ethiopian Texts: Book of Enoch - Etext in Ethiopian and Charles' English translation.
Linear B - A very short introduction to the script and it deciphering into Greek.
Linear B and Linear A Compared - Some photographs of inscribed tablets and jars from Knossos, Crete.
Linear B and the Mycenaean States - An essay assessing the contribution that Linear B tablets can make to our understanding of the economy of the Mycenaeans.
Linear B Dictionary - Contains a single link to twelve page list (in pdf format) of Linear B words, their Latin & Greek alphabet transliteration, and their meaning. Slow download.
Linear B Tablets and Mycenaean Organization - By interpreting Linear B as early Greek, this short article reveals the complex system of land tenure described in tablets from Knossos and Pylos.
Mesopotamian Year Names - The list of more than 2,000 Neo-Sumerian and Old Babylonian date formulae drawn up by Marcel Sigrist and Peter Damerow as a tool for the dating of cuneiform tablets.
Ogham Inscriptions Index - Jost Gippert of Frankfurt University aims to provide a new edition of the corpus of ogham inscriptions. Photographs with translations of ogham stones from Ireland, Wales and Scotland. Bibliography.
Phaistos Disk - American Linguists Rev. Kevin Massey-Gillespie and Dr. Keith Massey announce the their decipherment effort.
Phaistos Disk Decipherment - An updated resource with news on attempts to decipher the Phaistos Disk.
Picturing the Past - Researcher Tom Malzbender has invented a tool that lets scholars see ancient inscribed texts in ways never before possible. Illustrated article from Hewlett-Packard Labs.
Prehistoric Writings in Greece - Tracks the development of Linear B from Cretan hieroglyphics via Linear A; some transliteration of symbols derived from Greek words given.
Program in Aegean Scripts and Prehistory - Specialized research into areas of Aegean and eastern Mediterranean prehistory and archaeology pertaining to inscribed or marked materials, at the Department of Classics at University of Texas at Austin.
Roman Inscriptions of Britain - Roman expert Guy de la Bédoyère has made available on-line the texts from the standard work 'Roman Inscriptions of Britain', vol.1.
Rosetta Stone - Photograph and description from the British Museum of the slab found in 1799 in Rosetta, with a text written in hieroglyphs, Demotic and Greek, enabling the crucial breakthrough in deciphering Egyptian writing.
Scrolls From the Dead Sea - Information about the Qumran community and the Dead Sea Scrolls, including images of Psalms, Hosea, Enoch, and other canonical and non-canonical books.
Suda On-Line - Searchable translations and forum for Byzantine lexicography.
Sumerian Language - John Halloran's lexicon of Sumerian, paper analyzing Proto-Sumerian, illustrated description of symbolic counting tokens, proverbs in Sumerian cuneiform and a map of Sumerian archaeological sites.
Sumerian Lexical Archive - Forum for the presentation and discussion of particular points of the Sumerian lexicon, edited by Miguel Civil, Oriental Institute, University of Chicago.
Sumerian Text Archive - Offers a collection of transliterated Sumerian texts, using only characters from the ASCII alphabet so that the text files can be used on every type of computer. Hosted by Leiden University.
Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum - Annual bibliography of Greek epigraphy, collecting newly published Greek inscriptions and studies on previously known documents. Published by Leiden University.
The Ancient Library of Qumran and Modern Scholarship - Exhibit at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC: Introduction; photos of artifacts; sample texts and translations; related material at the Library of Congress.
The Book of Enoch - Page-by-page facsimile of 1882 Ethiopic translation with notes by George H. Schodde.
The Book of Enoch and The Secrets of Enoch - Translations by R.H. Charles and Richard Laurence; also includes the "Slavonic" "Secrets of Enoch".
The Edinburgh Ras Shamra Project - Jeff Lloyd and Nick Wyatt of the University of Edinburgh provide digital images of texts written in the alphabetic cuneiform script developed at the ancient city of Ugarit.
The Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature - In preparation at the University of Oxford aims to make accessible over 400 literary works composed in the Sumerian language in ancient Mesopotamia during the late third and early second millennia BC.
The Ogham Stone - Liberty Mill's illustrated guide to this ancient Irish writing system, with a complete table of Ogham characters. Examples of standing stones with Ogham inscriptions. Links.
The Oriental Institute and Epigraphy - The epigraphic survey of this institute of the University of Chicago was founded in 1924 and continues to record inscriptions and decoration on Ancient Egyptian monuments.
U.S. Epigraphy Project - Aims to gather and distribute information about ancient Greek and Latin inscriptions preserved in the USA. Index of published ancient Greek and Latin inscriptions in the USA. Collections, databases.