I.Sicily

I.Sicily: current coverage

We here summarize the current extent of the data covered by the I.Sicily (Inscriptions of ancient Sicily) corpus. This page is updated regularly to reflect the current state of the project.

  • Total number of inscriptions: 4745 (excluding 20 ‘modern’ forgeries)
    • stone: 3248
    • ceramic: 945
    • metal: 304
  • Inscriptions by origin
    • Sicily: 4641
    • Malta: 27
    • mainland Italy: 16
    • Greece: 2

All texts now have as a minimum a draft text, derived from a published edition, supplemented by metadata. The range of metadata is still somewhat variable, but core metadata is included for almost all inscriptions, and full data is included for many more than the 332 which are currently classified as fully edited.

The current major ‘gaps’ in the dataset are as follows:

  • several hundred, mostly very fragmentary, texts are still to be uploaded from the collections of the Museo archeologico regionale P. Orsi, Siracusa (autopsied and recorded, but not yet processed).
  • several hundred texts remain to be included from the Siracusa catacombs (again the majority have been studied, but not yet processed).
  • c.100 fragmentary texts from the 20th century excavations of Roman Catania have been catalogued, in collaboration with the Parco archeologico di Catania, but have yet to be incorporated into the dataset.
  • Punic texts are mostly unedited (although the files are online), and are currently being gradually revised with the assistance of Prof. Rossana De Simone.
  • Metal texts: the current set of c.300 is only partially edited, and is not yet a complete reflection of the published material.
  • Ceramic texts: a very extensive set of the ceramic texts for the Archaic period is included (principally the work of Valentina Mignosa), although not all are yet fully edited; ceramic texts from other periods remain a long-term ambition, but less of a priority compared to texts on stone and metal.

Please note that we have no plans at present to include either stamped inscriptions on ceramic, or coin legends (although we hope to include the latter eventually).