Both the range of this subject and its time span are truly vast. 1 This paper addresses a few of the issues concerning the activities of European antiquarians and the ancient Greek and Roman inscriptions of Asia Minor over the course of four hundred years from 1400 to 1800, touching upon five matters. Firstly, the collection and removal of antiquities including inscriptions by Europeans. Secondly, the varied functions of the visible ancient inscriptions for the Ottoman state and its inhabitants, both talismanic and therapeutic, and of the "non-literal reading" of an ancient inscription, distinct from the European antiquarian interest in the literal text of inscriptions, in establishing record of, and collections of the inscribed historical texts surviving from antiquity. Thirdly, the question of how safe a home was Europe for antiquities, including inscriptions and manuscripts that were brought from Asia Minor, and how much of scholarly importance that had survived was then lost in transit at sea and in Europe in wars and disasters? Fourthly, the problems with the transcriptions made by hand, the content of the record made and its accuracy. Was the inscription regarded simply as a text, prioritised as a text, or, was the text transcribed in its context including the epigraphic surface, its shape and relief carving, if any, its physical location if in situ, was it understood as forming a whole, and was it recorded as such? Were the letter forms, the number of lines, the different size of letters and words in an inscription, misspellings, etc., accurately noted or not? And, finally, the problems generated through the printed publication from the 16 th c. onwards of the transcriptions that had been made of inscriptions, in particular, those employing a standard font in publication for the study of inscriptions, not least impacting the understanding of orthography. Again, was it a matter of the antiquarian publishing just the text of an inscription, or the text within its context, to scale,