Memoria in aeternum ?

Memoria in aeternum? Roman inscriptions were conceived as “public announcements for eternity”. Yet archaeology shows that they often had a second life: displaced, reused, repurposed or transformed, they frequently appear in contexts far removed from the one for which they had originally been carved.

The outcome of a conference held at the University of Poitiers in March 2024, this volume explores the many forms of epigraphic recycling in the Roman province of Aquitaine. Drawing on case studies based on archaeological and epigraphic evidence, the contributions examine the economic, social, political and symbolic reasons behind these practices, from the Early Empire to the medieval and early modern periods. By combining different approaches and regional contexts with comparative perspectives – from Aquitaine to Roman Africa, and from Narbonensis to the Iberian Peninsula –, they offer a renewed reflection on the relationships between writing, memory and the materiality of monuments and invite us to reconsider the actual duration of the memory inscribed in stone and the transformations of memorial culture in the societies of the Roman world.

Above all, this volume pays tribute to the late Alain Tranoy whose work largely shaped the study of Aquitanian epigraphy.