Ancient Inscriptions and Epigraphic Records

Documents surviving as physical inscriptions, engravings or manuscript artifacts from antiquity, read by historians and archaeologists as epigraphic or archaeological primary sources rather than as paper instruments of the kind a chancery or parliament produced. Belongs here: the Behistun Inscription, the Cyrus Cylinder, the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Mesha Stele, the Res Gestae Divi Augusti, and the Rosetta Stone. Does not belong here: a later written treaty, charter or declaration surviving on paper or parchment rather than as an inscribed or engraved artifact, whatever its own antiquity.