Workshop on Medieval Epigraphy, Jerusalem, 14-15 July 2026

Introducing tools and methods for Medieval Epigraphy Research

Organized by Dr Vardit Shotten Hallel (Israel Antiquities Authority) and Dr Robert Kool (Israel Antiquities Authority, head Coin department), with François-Xavier Fauvelle, Director of the French Research Center in Jerusalem, the aim of this workshop was to provide an introduction to medieval epigraphy, mainly to archaeologists. Archaeologists and epigraphers have long worked in concert across methodological and theoretical differences to study past writing. Archaeology and epigraphy share fundamental concerns with material and visual qualities of historical text-bearing objects, including sociocultural context, viewer reception, scale, text-image relations, or materiality. Drawing on medieval inscriptions from France, as well as from the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem and the Kingdom of Cyprus under the Lusignans, the workshop gave first a disciplinary overview and the outline of epigraphic developments in the medieval period. It then focused on fieldwork, explaining the methods: discovery, documenting, recording and digital tools. The third session explored the carving letters, the whole “chaîne opératoire” of the realisation of an inscriptions, presenting the differents technics and tools. The fourth session explained the evolution of scripts and languages in the medieval epigraphy, and the fifth was dedicated to the publication and the reproduction of the inscriptions. The last session was a study of the crusader inscriptions preserved in the storage.

Tuesday, 14 July 2026

Jerusalem, CRFJ Shimshon St 3, Jerusalem

9:30 – 11:00 First Session: Medieval Epigraphy – an introduction (Dr. Estelle Ingrand-Varenne).

11:00 – 11:30 Coffee Break

11:30 – 13:00 Second Session: Working in the Field – discovery, documenting, recording and digital tools (Dr. Estelle Ingrand-Varenne and Dr Clément Dussart).

13:00 – 13:30 Questions and discussion

13:30 – 14:30 Lunch

14:30 –16:00 Third Session: Carving Letters: between theory and practice (Dr. Thierry Gregor).

16:00 – 16:30 Coffee Break

16:30 – 17:00 Questions and discussion                              

Wednesday, 15 July 2026

Bet Shemesh, National Treasures Hamelacha 203, Bet Shemesh

9:30 – 10:45 Fourth Session: Inscriptions and languages in the Latin East (Dr. Estelle Ingrand-Varenne).

10:45 – 11:00 Coffee Break

11:00 – 12:30 Fifth Session: Reproducing the inscriptions – technics and publication (Dr. Estelle Ingrand-Varenne et Dr. Clément Dussart)

12:30 – 13:00 Questions and discussion

13:00-14:00 Lunch

14:00-17:00 Study of the medieval epigraphic collection

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