ABSTRACT
This chapter is concerned solely with Middle Aramaic inscriptions of approximately 100 bc to ad 300, and focuses attention on the Greek and Roman periods in the Middle East. The inscriptions come from Petra, Palmyra, Edessa and Hatra. In a famous article published in 1982, Ramsay MacMullen drew attention to the fact that what he called ‘the epigraphic habit’ among the Romans can be shown through statistics to have flourished in the early Roman Empire period and reached a peak around ad 150. The Palmyrene epigraphic harvest is also substantial. Quite apart from the inscriptions written in Greek at Palmyra, there are in the latest corpus 2,832 Palmyrene Aramaic inscriptions. The Palmyrenes certainly shared the epigraphic habit which had spread with the Roman Empire and many of these inscriptions are dedications of statues and tombs, as well as foundation documents related to temples and building work associated with temples.
