Fri, September 11 – Sat, September 12, 2026
8:15 am – 5:30 pm
The Ohio State University
Ohio Union, Barbie Tootle Room – 3rd Floor Room 3156
Please join us for Social History and Epigraphic Evidence, a conference hosted by The Ohio State University Center for Epigraphical and Palaeographical Studies.
This event is open to the public.
There is also a webinar for participants to join virtually.
For more information and the webinar link, please click here: https://epigraphy.osu.edu/events/epigraphy-conference-social-history-and-epigraphic-evidence
Friday, September 11th
8.15-9.00 Breakfast
9.00-9.15 Opening remarks: Gaia Gianni (The Ohio State University)
9.15-10.45 Session 1: Family Matters (Presider: Ruth Li)
- Mills McArthur (Southern Adventist University) “Attic Manumissions: Family Relationships and Social Control.”
- Damian Day (University of Virginia) “Brothers-in-Blood or Brothers-in-Arms: New Methods for Interpreting Frater in Solders’ Funerary Inscriptions.”
- Sheena Finnigan (University of Chicago) “Nunc quis alet natum? An Analysis of an Enslaved Mother’s Funerary Monument.”
10.45-11.15 Coffee Break
11.15-12.45 Session 2: Epigraphy in the Near East (Presider: Matthew Herzog)
- Anna Accettola (Independent Scholar) “Comparative Identities: What does it mean to be ‘Nabataean’ in the Mediterranean World?”
- Cody Beasley (The Ohio State University) “‘The Inscription Remains Long After its Inscriber’: New Horizons in Islamic Arabic Epigraphy.”
- James Moore (The Ohio State University) “The Corpus of Imperial Aramaic Inscriptions and Epigraphs from Asia Minor in the DEAPS Database.”
12.45-2.00 Lunch
2-3.30 Session 3: Labor and identity (Presider: Ashley Jordan)
- Marianna Esposito (The Ohio State University) “Being a Faber in the Classis Praetoria Misenensis. The extraordinary case of Marcus Plotius Firmus.”
- Jinyu Liu (Emory University) “The Dual Role of Roman Collegium in Relation to Family.”
- Hallie G. Meredith (Washington State University) “Handheld Words: Finding late Roman Professional Women Glass Producers.”
3.30-4.00: Coffee Break
4.00-5.30: Keynote Speaker: John Bodel (Brown University) “Out of the Shadows: Forty Years of Epigraphy and Social History”.
5.30-9.00: Reception and Dinner at the Faculty Club
Saturday, September 12th
8.15-9.00 Breakfast
9.00-10.30 Session 4: Living religion (Presider: Charlotte McDonald)
- Stella Skaltsa (Queen’s University) “Reviving the cult of Poseidon in Late Hellenistic Thasos: the role of associations.”
- Yesenia Brambila (University of California Berkeley) “Taskscapes of the Attic Sacrificial Calendars.”
- Grace Funsten (University of Pittsburg) “Sensory Approaches to Latin Verse Epitaphs: CIL 6.5302 as Case Study.”
10.30-11.00 Coffee Break
11.00-12.30 Session 5: Greco-Roman Slavery (Presider: Lucy Parr)
- Marios Anastasiadis (New York University) “An ‘Epigraphy of Slavery’? The Attic Curse Tablets as a Case Study.”
- Jan-Mathieu Carbon (Queen’s University) “Enslaved and Prisoners: Comparing Rules about ‘Release’ or Temporary Freedom in Greek Festivals.”
- Morgan Palmer (University of Nebraska-Lincoln) “Slaves and Freed Persons of the Vestal Virgins: Evidence from Roman Inscriptions.”
12.30-2.00 Lunch
2.00-3.30 Session 6: Pompeii and Herculaneum (Presider: Marianna Esposito)
- Holly Sypniewski and Jacqueline DiBiasie-Sammons (Clarkson University and University of Mississippi) “New Figural Graffiti in the Casa dei Cervi, Herculaneum (IV.21).”
- Ashley Jordan and Charlotte McDonald (The Ohio State University) “The Faces of Pompeii.”
- Steven Tuck (Miami University) “Variances in the Identities Among Survivors of Vesuvius from Herculaneum and Pompeii.”
3.30-4.00 Coffee Break
4.00-5.30 Keynote Speaker: Sara Forsdyke (University of Michigan) “Beyond Textiles and Sex Work: Epigraphical Evidence for Women’s Income-Generating Labor Outside the Household in Ancient Greece”
5.30-9.00 Reception and Dinner