When Letter Met Figure: Inscriptions and Images in Archaic Greece

by Hugo Shakeshaft

Hesperia, Volume 95, Issue 1
Page(s): 51-97
Stable URL: https://muse.jhu.edu/article/985790
Year: 2026
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ABSTRACT:

This article explores the relationship between inscriptions and images in Greece ca. 750-450 BCE by examining a wide range of artifacts across various media and social contexts. It highlights the regional diversity of Greek epigraphic and pictorial habits, the general patterns of their development, and the perceived similarities and differences between alphabetic letter and figural image during this time. Comparanda from the Near East serve to reveal parallel, divergent, and directly related practices in the combination of writing with images. The article advances a novel argument for why the period ca. 650-450 BCE was one of marked and unprecedented affinity between letter and figure in the Greek world.