The Materiality of Writing in a Multilingual Landscape: Epigraphic Habits in Archaic–Classical Sicily

This paper examines the epigraphic habits of Archaic and Classical Sicily (c. 750–323 BCE) across Greek, Phoenician–Punic, and indigenous contexts. The Sicilian dossier is marked by asymmetry: stone was used selectively for funerary and dedicatory monuments, lead for ritual regulations and curse tablets, while ceramics dominated among Elymians and Sikels, especially in sanctuaries and burials. Case studies from Segesta, Selinus, Motya, and Montagna di Marzo show how sanctuaries, cemeteries, and industrial quarters functioned as contact zones, yet rarely produced bilingual texts. Instead, alphabets themselves mediated cultural interaction. Rather than a single Sicilian koine, the island reveals a mosaic of epigraphic practices.