The 25TH INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF BYZANTINE STUDIES. BYZANTIUM BEYOND BYZANTIUM (Vienna, 24-29 August 2026) is coming, and together with it a thematic session and a round table co-organised by our project with Ida Toth (University of Oxford) and Arietta Papaconstantinou (Aix-Marseille Université).
During these meetings we will ask important questions about the role of language and multilingualism in the epigraphical production, among them about the linguistic education of stone-cutters a the challenges they faced while working with strangers' languages.
Our Round Table and Thematic Session explore epigraphic contexts attesting to the presence of two or more languages and their scripts in close physical proximity to each other. Our aims are as follows: 1) to identify epigraphic patterns, connections, and mutual influences; 2) to examine how language choices shape intended messages, and to explore the broader socio-cultural implications of this relationship, and 3) to highlight the role of language choice in the production of inscriptions and to assess the linguistic competence of their makers.
Schedule:
Tuesday, 25 August 2026 Location: BIG-HS (BIG-Hörsaal, Universität Wien) Thematic Session 2.31: Epigraphic Diversities: Inscriptions from Comparative and Cross-cultural Perspectives
Conveners: Ida Toth, Paweł Nowakowski, Arietta Papaconstantinou
SPEAKERS:
- Maria Aimé Villano, An Epigraphic Survey of the Pala d’Oro at the Basilica of San Marco in Venice
- Nicholas Melvani, Multilingualism on Mount Athos: Greek and Slavic Inscriptions in the Sacred Space of a Monastic Community
- Ketevan Mikeladze, Signatures of Medieval Painters on Georgian Wall Paintings: Their Function and Spatial Context
- Nicholas de Lange, Greek and Hebrew in Byzantine Jewish Inscriptions
- Lilyana Yordanova, Bilingualism in Art: Issues and Insights from the Bulgarian Material (13th–16th Century)
Wednesday, 26 August 2026 Location: BIG-HS (BIG-Hörsaal, Universität Wien) Round Table 3.17: Epigraphic Diversities: Inscriptions from Comparative and Cross-Cultural Perspectives
Conveners: Paweł Nowakowski, Arietta Papaconstantinou, Ida Toth
SPEAKERS:
- Rodney Ast, Whose Monument is This? Determining Agency in Bilingual Dedications from the Port of Berenike
- Julia Borczyńska, Between Licentia Epigraphica, Linguistic Interference, and the Stonecutter’s Inexperience: Non-Professional Inscription-Making as a Mode of Epigraphic Practice in Late Antique Rome
- Olivia Ramble, Trilingual and Bilingual Inscriptions of Sasanian Iran: Exploring a Nascent Dynasty’s Choice of Languages and Scripts
- Andrés Rea, Shared Hands, Different Tongues? Multilingual Epigraphy, Workshop Practice and Craft Traditions in the Early Byzantine Eastern Mediterranean
- Michael Zellmann-Rohrer, Multilingual Magical Texts in Early Byzantine Epigraphy
Our participants are early- and middle-career scholars as well as senior academics. They are epigraphy specialists working on multilingual inscriptional traditions from cross/intercultural and comparative perspectives. They will approach inscriptions diachronically and with an interdisciplinary (literary, historical, religious) focus while also closely engaging with any extant visual and material evidence.
Please, feel free to share the printable pdf poster and the booklet of abstracts from our website.