Blog

/Happy 15th birthday, Palaeohispanica!

by Borja DÍAZ ARIÑO, María José ESTARÁN TOLOSA

06
Feb

Fifteen years ago the Institution Fernando el Católico (CSIC) published the first issue of Palaeohispanica, a journal originally conceived as a scientific forum for those interested on cultures and languages of ancient Hispania.

Over the years this modest objective has been happily overstepped, since not only the most striking Celtiberian, Iberian, Lusitanian and Tartessian epigraphical discoveries have been published throughout the pages of Palaeohispanica; but also many of the most groundbreaking studies on the languages and writings of the ancient Iberian Peninsula have chosen this journal as their mean of communication and dissemination. Actually, the proceedings of the last three International Conferences on Palaeohispanic Languages and Cultures (Barcelona 2004, Lisbon 2009 and Valencia 2012), have been published in Palaeohispanica.

Taking this into account, one might say that Palaeohispanica has reached its goal and could be considered one of the reference journals on ancient European languages, writings and cultures; an achievement that could not have been accomplished without the enthusiastic engagement of a large number of scholars.

The fifteenth issue of the journal, corresponding to the year 2015, has just been released. The volume has three sections: “Studies”, “Epigraphic News” and “Chronica Epigraphica”. The first section includes three papers: the first one offers a proposal to the systematisation of the Palaeohispanic scripts in order to adapt them to UNICODE; the second is focused on the study of the epigraphic culture of Southern Spain, and the last one offers a new survey on the Iberian inscriptions made of opus signinum, one of the "classic" subjects of the Palaeohispanic studies. In the "Epigraphic News" section several new documents are published and some older ones, written on Iberian, Celtiberian and Latin, from Borja (Zaragoza), Liria (Valencia), Pamplona, Soria, La Rioja and Palencia, are revisited. Last, “Chronica Epigraphica” gathers all the Iberian and Celtiberian epigraphic novelties appeared during 2015.

As usual, readers can choose between the print version and the online version of Palaeohispanica, which will be available free as a download on the web site of the Institución Fernando el Católico (http://ifc.dpz.es/publicaciones/ver/id/3502).

We are sure you all will enjoy this issue (as well as the previous ones!). Happy reading and happy 15th birthday, Palaeohispanica!