Abecedarium

Others, such as those known from Safaitic inscriptions, list the letters of the alphabet in different orders, suggesting that the script was casually rather than formally learned.

Some abecedaria found in the Athenian Agora appear to be deliberately incomplete, consisting of only the first three to six letters of the Greek alphabet, and these may have had a magical or ritual significance.

One such stone, found in the cemetery of St. Alexander, in the Via Nomentana, is inscribed as follows: This can be compared with a denarius of L. Cassius Caecinianus, which has the following inscription: Jerome explained this similarity.

A stone found at Rome in 1877, and dating from the 6th or 7th century, seems to have been used in a school, as a model for learning the alphabet, and points to the continuance of old methods of teaching.

An Abecedary, a full alphabet carved in stone or written in book form, was historically found in churches, monasteries and other ecclesiastical buildings.

An example, the first seven letters or so of which were found in 1967, is from the long demolished Church of St Mary of the Grey Friars in Dumfries, Scotland.

In this case, the letters are inscribed in the Lombardic script of the 1260s and the complete structure would probably have stood near the high altar [citation needed].