The stoichedon style of epigraphy

Epigraphy

Epigraphy Epigraphy Epigraphy (from the , literally "on-writing", is the study of inscriptions or epigraphs as writing; that is, the science of identifying the graphemes and of classifying their use as to cultural context and date, elucidating their meaning and assessing what conclusions can be...

 was the practice of engraving ancient Greek inscriptions in capitals such that the letters were aligned vertically as well as horizontally. Texts of this form give the appearance of being composed in a grid with the same number of letters in each line and each space in the grid filled with a single letter; hence, there are no spaces between words, and no spaces or punctuation between sentences. The majority are Attic, but it was widely used in the Greek world, and the earliest examples are from not later than the second half of the 6th century BCE; the first is perhaps the Salaminian Decree. It was the dominant style of inscription in Athens during the 5th and 4th centuries BCE and was the preferred style for official state proclamations. The last stoichedon text dates from the 3rd century CE and is the geneaological inscription from the Heroon

Heroon

A heroon , also called heroum, was a shrine dedicated to an ancient Greek or Roman hero and used for the commemoration or cult worship of the hero. It was often erected over his supposed tomb or cenotaph....

 of Oenoanda

Oenoanda

Oenoanda , in the upper valley of the River Xanthus, was the most southerly of the tetrapolis led by Cibyra in the Hellenistic Period, which was dissolved by L. Licinius Murena in 84 BCE, whereupon Oenoanda became part of the koinon of Lycia, as its inscriptions abundantly demonstrate...

 in Lycia

Lycia

Lycia Lycian: Trm̃mis; ) was a region in Anatolia in what are now the provinces of Antalya and Muğla on the southern coast of Turkey. It was a federation of ancient cities in the region and later a province of the Roman Empire...

. The idiom was less common in Latin epigraphy, a rare exception is the Sator square.

This form of inscription is of particular interest to scholars of Greek epigraphy due the chance it affords to reconstruct fragmentary texts. Few if any Greek tablets survive intact, however the language and tenor of inscriptions are often formulaic and with a knowledge of the precise number of missing letters it is possible to make an informed guess about the lost text.