On 18-20 March Paweł Nowakowski and Efthymios Rizos participated in the 49th Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies, Inscribing Texts in Byzantium: Continuities and Transformations (Exeter College, Oxford).

Paweł’s paper began with the presentation of the search engine of our database and its functions especially useful for epigraphists, e.g.: browsing inscriptions attesting to the cult of saints, searching for the epigraphic evidence for the cult of a given saint, reading an inscription’s card, etc. The second part of the paper dealt with the changes in the use of inscriptions as a peculiar instrument of cult between the late antique and middle Byzantine period, including the growing dossier of epigraphically venerated saints, the sophistication of saints’ epithets (probably modelled on the epithets of the elite), the appearance of explicit references to emotions of donors, and the introduction of new forms of old types of inscriptions.

Efthymios spoke about inscribed imperial letters, as examples of the institutional transformations of imperial and municipal government from the Principate to Late Antiquity. His talk focused especially on inscriptions from the Christian shrines of Ephesos.