New Haven – Yale Inscriptions is a searchable database of inscriptions around New Haven, CT, and Yale’s campus. Inscriptions in the database are carefully edited primarily by Yale undergraduates. Editions of inscriptions include not just the text of the inscriptions themselves but commentary on their meaning, historical context, and relevance to the communities they speak to.

Through inscriptions (and the art that accompanies them) the past speaks to its future. Put another way, through inscriptions we engage with the past. However, inscriptions are easy to miss, and they can be hard to understand when we see them. In response, New Haven – Yale Inscriptions hopes to increase the visibility and interpretability of the inscriptions that surround us.

Each inscription in the database is catalogued as either YCI (“Yale Campus Inscription”), indicating that it appears on or in a building on Yale’s campus, or NHI (“New Haven Inscription”), indicating that it appears in New Haven beyond Yale. The distinction is not meant to promote the town-gown divide that has plagued New Haven since Yale, then called the Collegiate School, moved here in 1716. Rather, perhaps by calling attention to the divide New Haven – Yale Inscriptions can help Yale users in particular explore and appreciate the immediate world beyond the proverbial “Yale Bubble.”

To get involved in the project, contact James F. Patterson, the Language Program Director in Classics at Yale University. There are hundreds of inscriptions yet to explore, and we need help!

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Editor-in-Chief: James F. Patterson

Assistant Editors: Talia Boylan (Fall 2024), Meghan Poplacean (Fall 2023), Kirsten Traudt (Fall 2024)

Editors: Cade Allison, Nani Awan (YCI 6), Alliese Bonner (YCI 8), Kurt Boone (YCI 7), Brennan Columbia-Walsh, Ava Dadvand (YCI 11), Jeth Fogg, Sophie Foster (YCI 12), Owen Hannon, Grant Jordan, Julieanna King, Luke McLaughlin, Cael McCullum (YCI 9), Elena Ohe (YCI 5), Rachel Park (YCI 10), James F. Patterson (NHI 1, YCI 1, YCI 2, YCI 3), Isabella Sanchez (YCI 4), Will Sussbauer, Mitchell Tyler