Jérusalem, Vallée de Hinnom, Inscription tumulaire grecque, 1 1854 - 1859

Auguste Salzmann captured this photograph of a Greek inscription in the Valley of Hinnom, Jerusalem. The stone bears witness to language, a symbolic system through which we attempt to transcend mortality. Inscriptions, like the one here, are not merely texts; they're declarations against oblivion. Consider the Rosetta Stone, a key that unlocked an ancient civilization by bridging hieroglyphs with Greek. Similarly, funerary inscriptions across cultures—from Roman epitaphs to Egyptian sarcophagi—share a common impulse: to preserve memory. The act of writing, especially on enduring materials like stone, becomes a defiant gesture against the relentless passage of time. This photograph invites us to ponder the echoes of voices long gone, and how we continue to inscribe our existence onto the world, hoping our stories endure.