The Local Scripts of Archaic Greece. A Study of the Origin of the Greek Alphabet and its Development from the Eighth to the Fifth Centuries B.C. - [ESTABLISHING THE CHRONOLOGY OF GREEK INSCRIPTIONS]

Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1961 4to. Original full blue cloth with gilt spine. Apart from a few light pencil-marginalia, a very nice, clean, tight, and fresh copy - in- as well as externally. XX, 416 pp. + 72 plates (on 72 pp.), (4, - Table of Letters) pp. First edition of this monumental classic, in which the chronology of archaic inscriptions was established for the first time."This is the only modern work to survey in depth the inscriptions of Greece before 403 BC. The original text attempts to reconstruct, for Greek inscriptions from the eighth to the fifth centuries BC, a chronological system (divided tentatively into twenty-five year periods) similar to those already generally accepted for Greek sculpture and pottery. It includes surveys of the origin and dissemination of the alphabet among the city states, the development and content of early inscriptions, and the techniques of the craftsmen, followed by a discussion of the inscriptions of each state. Each section contains a list, with bibliography, of all significant inscriptions, while numerous photographs and facsimiles of the inscriptions provide an important instrument of control. The approach is primarily archaeological, but account is taken also of the many historical, philological, and artistic problems involved."This is a monumental, an altogether superb, book . It is a book worth waiting for, a major work for reading and for reference, in its field incomparable, and a contribution to the history of our civilization." Classical World.". (Revied of the Oxfiord University Press new, revised edition). …