Marking identity through graphemes? A new look at the Sikel arrow-shaped alpha

Exploring scripts in their social context often involves considering the role that writing – sometimes down to the level of spelling conventions and individual graphemes – plays in the construction of identities. In this paper we look at some of the issues which similar approaches face when they are applied to ancient contexts. In doing so we focus on a case-study which at first sight might seem to pertain exclusively to the epigraphic domain: the peculiar arrow-shaped form that the letter alpha takes in the Greek alphabetic variety employed by the Sikel people of ancient Sicily.