After much anticipation and applied creative energies, the EAGLE project released its definitive logo. A synthetic representation of the plethora of inscribed material to be found among the digital content provided by the project partners, the logo strives to conjugate aesthetic beauty with a precise conceptual line.

The logo’s ‘big bubble’ contains the Pompeian fresco of the So-called Sappho, which depicts a young woman with a stylus for the wax tablet she is holding. Such tablets represent one of the most usual ways of writing in the Roman world, however only a relatively small amount of them (mostly found in the Vesuvian area), are still preserved. Although not technically “inscriptions”, their very interesting text will be made available in EAGLE thanks to the efforts of Giuseppe Camodeca, who’s ingesting this material in EDR.

The image in the lower bubble is a Fragment with a gold-threaded inscription from the Museo nazionale romano in Rome. It is the base of a large cup with an inscription wishing long life to Valens. The cartouche and letters are made of gold thread. Within the economy of the EAGLE logo, the fragment is intended to recall the many aspects of ancient daily life that incorporated ‘non serial’ inscribed instrumentum (fistulae, signacula, tabellae immunitatis, tesserae…). The project’s inclusion of such artifacts is a major contribution to the cultural heritage of the world, and is proud to represent this accomplishment in the logo.

There are two inscriptions reproduced in the “E”, one in Latin and the other in Greek:

  • the Latin inscription is the Stele sepolcrale di Licinia Amias (the sepulchral stele of Licinia Amias), which is conserved in the Museo Nazionale Romano alle Terme di Diocleziano. The stele is considered to be among the oldest Christian inscriptions. It contains both the dedication to the Manes Deities, and the Greek Christian expression Ichtys Zonton. The stele was chosen for the logo because it assumes numerous key characteristics: it has both Greek and Latin characters and symbols, and is introduced by a dedication typical of pagan epitaphs despite the fact that it is Christian. In sum, it condenses Pagan, Christian, Greek and Latin epigraphy in four lines!
  • The second inscription, written in beautiful ancient Greek characters, is a marblestone found on the via Appia and preserved in the Mausoleum of Cecilia Metella. It features a metric Greek inscription dedicated to Pontianos, a foreigner born in Amastri (Ponto), Asia Minor. It is decorated with antefixes, a triangular tympanum, and a kantharos (cup)  on the posterior side. It was chosen for the logo because it shows how epigraphy can represent an ideal bridge between very far places like Rome and Asia Minor, i.e., the Western and Eastern parts of the Mediterranean world.

Logo Images Credits

The Pompeian fresco of the So-called Sappho is used with the kind permission of the Ministero per i Beni e le Attività Culturali. Soprintendenza Speciale per i Beni Archeologici di Napoli e Pompei.

The following images are used with the kind permission of the Ministero per i Beni e le Attivita’ Culturali. Soprintendenza Speciale per i Beni Archeologici di Roma:

  • Stele sepolcrale di Licinia Amias (sepulchral stele of Licinia Amias)
  • Metric Greek inscription dedicated to Pontianos
  • Fragment with a gold-threaded inscription from the Museo Nazionale Romano in Rome