Abstract
This paper examines one assemblage of texts from southern India, stone inscriptions of the Vijayanagara period, and considers both how these texts have been studied and how that history of research has structured our understanding of the past. We ask how these texts might be interpreted differently, (1) under different conditions of sampling and recovery, with a specific focus on in-field locations of inscriptions, and (2) as sources of information combined with archaeological data. We suggest that traditional source-side criticism of texts might be profitably expanded routinely to include contextual analysis, such as archaeologists apply to studies of artifacts.
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Morrison, K.D., Lycett, M.T. Inscriptions as artifacts: Precolonial south india and the analysis of texts. J Archaeol Method Theory 4, 215–237 (1997). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02428062
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02428062