Date: December 3-4
Location: Leiden University
Room: TBD
On 3–4 December 2026, Leiden University will host Epigraphy in Context: Inscriptions, Mobility, and the Landscapes of Travel in the Early Islamic Milieu. The workshop brings together scholars working on inscriptions from across the pre- and early Islamic world, with a particular interest in exploring inscriptions’ engagement with their physical landscapes.
Printed editions often isolate inscriptions from their original spatial and social contexts, flattening them into static texts divorced from the roads, vistas, and audiences that originally encountered them. Epigraphy in Context aims to return inscriptions to these landscapes and ask how their placement and visibility shape their meaning—and what they can tell us about the movement of people, ideas, and even political power.
Over two days, participants will approach these questions through particular inscriptions, corpora, and landscapes, with special attention to roads and travel routes as spaces of mobility and encounter. The workshop will bring together both published and unpublished material and provide an opportunity for discussion across different regions and epigraphic traditions. Interested students, colleagues, and members of the wider academic community are warmly invited to attend. Registration is required.
Register to attend here