Shared Hands, Different Tongues? Multilingual Epigraphy, Workshop Practice and Craft Traditions in the Early Byzantine Eastern Mediterranean

In the multilingual environment of the early Byzantine eastern Mediterranean, inscriptions offer a crucial lens through which to explore the interplay of language, identities, and craftsmanship. While previous scholarship has primarily addressed the linguistic and textual dimensions of bilingual or multilingual inscriptions, thereby highlighting aspects of intercultural contacts and exchange, their material production, and the hands and workshops behind them, remain far less understood. This paper examines the intersection of multilingualism and epigraphic practice in the early Byzantine East, asking whether inscriptions in different languages, often Greek and Latin but sometimes also local idioms, were produced by distinct carvers or within shared workshop traditions. Drawing on case studies from across the early Byzantine East, particularly from the dioceses of Asiana and Oriens, this paper will analyse letter forms, layout conventions, carving techniques, and surface preparation. By integrating palaeographic, epigraphic, and archaeological observation with attention to historical and linguistic contexts, the paper aims to open a discussion on the material dimension of multilingualism in early Byzantine epigraphy. How did carvers and workshops negotiate the coexistence, or hierarchy, of multiple languages within a shared visual and technical repertoire? To what extent did the production of inscriptions itself participate in shaping the multilingual realities of early Byzantine society? These questions invite a re-evaluation of the relationship between language, materiality, and craft in the epigraphic cultures of the early Byzantine East.