Abecedarium
Raul Herrera
Some abecedaria include obsolete letters which are not otherwise attested in inscriptions. For example, abecedaria in the Etruscan alphabet from Marsiliana (the Tuscan town) include the letters B, D, and O, which indicate sounds not present in the Etruscan language and are therefore not found in Etruscan inscriptions. Others, such as those known from Safaitic inscriptions, list the letters of the alphabet in different orders, suggesting that the script was casually rather than formally learned.
Some abecedaria found in the Athenian Agora appear to be deliberately incomplete, consisting of only the first three to six letters of the Greek alphabet, and these may have had a magical or ritual significance.[1] A deliberately incomplete abecedarium found at Hymettos in Attica may have been a votive offering.[2]
Near the beginning of the Christian era, the Latin alphabet had already undergone its principal changes, and had become a definite system. The Greek alphabet was growing closer to the Latin alphabet. Towards the 8th century of Rome, the letters assumed their artistic forms and lost their older, narrower ones. The three letters added by Emperor Claudius have never been found in use in Christian inscriptions. The letters fell into disuse after Claudius's death. The alphabet used for monumental inscriptions was very different from the cursive. The uncial, occurring very rarely on sculptured monuments, and reserved for writing, did not appear until the 4th century. The majority of objects bearing the abecedaria are not of Christian origin, with the exception of two vases found at Carthage. These objects included tablets used by stone-cutters' apprentices while learning their trade. Stones have also been found in the catacombs, bearing the symbols A, B, C, etc. These are arranged, sometimes, in combinations which have puzzled scholars. One such stone, found in the cemetery of St. Alexander, in the Via Nomentana, is inscribed as follows:
Jerome explained this similarity. Children were made to learn the alphabet in pairs of letters, joining the first letter of the alphabet with the last letter (AX), the second letter with the second to last (BV), and so on. A stone found at Rome in 1877, and dating from the 6th or 7th century, seems to have been used in a school, as a model for learning the alphabet, and points to the continuance of old methods of teaching.
An Abecedary, a full alphabet carved in stone or written in book form, was historically found in churches, monasteries and other ecclesiastical buildings. Abecedaries are generally considered to be medieval teaching aids, particularly for the illiterate. The alphabet may have been thought to possess supernatural powers along the lines of the runic alphabet. Each letter would have had a symbolic meaning to the devout.
An example, the first seven letters or so of which were found in 1967, is from the long demolished Church of St Mary of the Grey Friars in Dumfries, Scotland. In this case the letters are inscribed in the Lombardic script of the 1260s and the complete structure would probably have stood near the high altar [citation needed].
One of the oldest examples is now in use as a gravestone in Kilmalkedar, near Dingle, Ireland. It has the appearance of a standing stone and is known as the Alphabet stone, displaying as it does an alphabet dating from early Christian times.[3]
Abecedarian psalms and hymns exist, these are compositions like Psalm 119 in Hebrew, and the Akathist hymn in Greek, in which distinct stanzas or verses commence with successive letters of the alphabet.[4]
While walking in recent years in the area of the Attic community of Vari, the undersigned has noticed a number of ancient graffiti cut into level expanses of exposed bedrock. While a full study of them is under way, one inscription is extracted for publication here because of the interest that attaches to it.
The inscription is a complete Old Attic abecedarium of twentyfour letters (Fig. 1). The rock surface bearing it is on the hill Barako or Keramoti, which forms the eastern side of the plain of Vari, some twenty kilometers south of Athens. The hill is composed principally of low quality dolomitic marble that tends to outcrop as irregularly flat expanses of grayish white color with red veining. Ancient passers by, some naming themselves as shepherds or goatherds, were in the habit of scratching their names, short comments and doodles on the rock of the hill. On the piece with the abecedarium, there are more than fifty engravings.
Following the four elements in their movements suggests a method of thinking about the world that is atheological and unpredetermined, a secular and speculative vitalism. The article is structured around an abecedarium, or alphabetic list, a mnemonic device with a long history.
The inscription is on a ceramic vessel in the shape of a cockerel, made from a black glazed ware known as bucchero. This type of pottery is typical of ancient Etruria, an area of Italy to the north of Rome where the now little-understood language Etruscan was spoken. Incised around the body of the vessel is an abecedarium, listing the signs of the alphabet in A,B,C order.
The cockerel dates from the 7th century BC, making it both an early example of bucchero ware and quite an early example of alphabetic writing in Italy. An astonishing variety of different shapes of vessel were produced in bucchero ware, ranging from more normal-looking bowls and pots of various kinds, to more adventurous items in the shape of animals and human figures. Many items made from bucchero ware were decorative drinking vessels associated with feasting, including some that imitated vessels usually made out of metals such as gold, silver and bronze. The shapes of bucchero ware vessels were very often inspired by the sorts of vessels in use in feasting contexts in the eastern Mediterranean, for example in Greece.
This object is particularly playful, a rather lifelike depiction of a cockerel that would have been used as some sort of vessel with a lid (you can see in the image where it opens at the top). It has been suggested that it might have been an inkwell, making its usage and the abecedarium inscribed on the outside fit in with each other: if this is the case, we would be dealing with a very decorative piece of writing paraphernalia.
Abecedarium: NYC is an interactive online exhibition that reflects on the history, geography, and culture - both above and below ground - of New York City through 26 unusual words. Using original video, animation, photography and sound, Abecedarium: NYC constructs visual relationships between these select words and specific locations in the Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens, and Staten Island.
A group of moving-image artists was invited to contribute their own visual interpretations of selected words, thus sharing their own unique perspective on the nature of language and urban life. In addition to creating a video, each artist reflects on their own work in the project blog, and intimately shares their perceptions and interpretations of the city in which they live. From listening to ringing church bells on a Sunday morning in Astoria, Queens to investigating the repercussions of the 1950 Standard Oil spill in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, each artist provides a unique vision that enriches the collective knowledge.
Artists (in alphabetical order): Susan Agliata, Alisa Besher, Beth Botshon, Janine Fleri, David Gatten, Barbara Hammer, Heather Kramer, George Kuchar, Ethan Mass, Scott Nyerges, Lynne Sachs, Erik Schurink, Erika Yeomans.
To place the project within the context of the greater culture of the web, Abecedarium: NYC utilizes the popular social networking tools of del.icio.us, Picasa, Facebook, Flickr, and Google Maps. In this way, project participants can become a part of and contribute to the Abecedarium: NYC network of links, photos and resources related to the geography and culture of New York City. When you add Abecedarium: NYC to your own del.icio.us social bookmarking account, post the link to your Facebook profile, or join the Abecedarium: NYC photo network on Google's Picasa, you will become an integral part of the online community.
The interactive content is also contextualized by a brief history of the artist abecedarium - from the Italian Futurist's edible alphabet to essayist Susan Sontag's alphabet of dance to avant-garde composer John Cage's alphabet radio poem. This narrative traces the rich history of the abecedarium as artistic outlet from the first seeds of language to the digital age, from physical objects to virtual worlds.
The experience of visiting Abecedarium: NYC is more than watching, listening and learning. Visitors to the project are invited to respond to existing content as well as to share their own experience of New York City by contributing original videos, soundscapes, photos or texts to the project blog. As more users contribute, the project grows in size, scope and experience, and transforms into a destination for sharing and learning about every facet of the city.
The web 2.0 capabilities of Abecedarium: NYC allow for a new level of user sharing, interaction and tracking. Shoot a video and geotag it to the exact location it was shot, then track other users' comments on your work via RSS feed. Add your favorite post to Digg and subscribe to the project feed through Google Reader or My Yahoo!.
Using del.icio.us, the project blog also provides links to related sites with a special focus on artist produced abecedarium projects. Find the alphabet on the wings of butterflies, a plant alphabet created by the artist John Baldessari, an acrostic alphabet poem read by former Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky, as well as the history of the alphabet.
It is not clear whether the process of adaptation of the Old Italic or Etruscan alphabet from the Greek alphabet took place in Italy in the city of Cumae, the first Greek colony on the mainland of Italy, or in Greece/Asia Minor. The Etruscan alphabet was a precursor of the Old Latin alphabet, the basis of the Latin alphabet.
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