Abstract

The present work depicts the content and functions of very specific carriers of collective memory, namely the epigraphic transmissions. The rich tradition of using epigraphic objects, their durability and communicative seriousness, make them consistently attractive forms of transferring memory also in small local communities of towns, villages, parishes, schools and working commu-nities. Those seen as particularly interesting ones are epigraphic objects, whose task is to “commemorate the origins”. The use of the “topos of origins” creates an initiation moment on the line of collective memory of a given local community. The observations presented in the work relate to the epigraphic resource, created in the last half century within the spatial framework of the borderland of Silesia and Lesser Poland.