Receiving her diploma in
Bologna in 1924, she attended the National School of Archeology in Rome from 1927 onwards, then proceeding to Athens. She was one of the first Italian women scholars to practice archaeology in Greece. She was appointed director of the
Scuola Alessandro Della Seta and headed up excavations on the island of
Crete. There she met
Federico Halbherr, a student of archeology from Florence's
Domenico Comparetti. Guarducci began collaborating with Halbherr and became his favorite pupil during the excavations of the Cretan city of Gortyna. Her work there continued after the death of Halbherr in 1930. After Halbherr's death, the project fell under the direction of the Cretan Louis Pernier. Guarducci, whose interests lay primarily in
epigraphy, took on the task of completing Halbherr's life's work, which was to compile a single work of the Greek and Latin inscriptions of Crete after the 7th century BC. She began a long period of reconnaissance throughout the island, verifying the accuracy of the earlier readings of Halbherr, making corrections and adding new information. She continued this work full-time until 1931 when she was appointed chair of Ancient Greek epigraphy at the
Università di Roma "La Sapienza" where she served until 1950. It was here she published the result of twenty years of research entitled the
Inscriptiones Creticae, which was published between 1935 and 1950. That work is considered the definitive collection of epigraphic entries, as well as the major compilation of the archeology and topography of the ancient city of
Gortyna in Crete. The work is in four volumes based on geography (Central Crete, Western Crete, Eastern Crete, and Gortyna), and bears the full title of
Inscriptiones Creticae, opera et consilio Friderici Halbherr collectae, Guarducci curavit Margarita, and is written in Latin. Individual volumes bear the following titles (with a year of publication): •
Tituli Cretæ mediæ præter Gortynios (Inscriptions of central Crete except Gortyna) (1935) •
Tituli Cretæ occidentalis (Inscriptions of western Crete) (1939) •
Tituli Cretæ orientalis (Inscriptions of eastern Crete) (1942) •
Tituli Gortynii (Inscriptions of Gortyna) (1950) Each volume is accompanied by an extensive bibliography divided into two sections: archaeology and epigraphs. Introductions explain archaeological, topographical, and antiquarian aspects of the areas treated. Entries include photographs, illustrations of epigraphs, transcripts, and extensive commentary.
Gortyn Code In the fourth volume, which focuses on the city of Gortyna, Guarducci addressed the so-called
Great Law (or Grand Inscription) of Gortyna (Inscr. Cret., Vol. IV, n.72), discovered by Federico Halbherr in 1884. The inscription, part of a building used as the Odeon, is engraved on a concave wall about 8 m long and 175 cm high. It is grouped into twelve columns of
boustrophedon writing. This is a type of writing that gradually alternates from left to right, writing a line backward, then reversing from right to left, for the entire text. It is likely that, on the left side of the wall, there were eight other columns which are now lost. This is not a real "code of laws," but rather, with the Latin, a
satura legum, i.e., a sparse collection of laws, updates of previous ancient laws, and new laws focused on a specific topic. In the case of the
Gortyn Code, the laws shown are mostly family law, as well as regarding economics and commerce.
Epigrafia Greca Guarducci's long experience of teaching resulted in a work that is now a cornerstone in the teaching of Greek epigraphy:
Epigrafia Greca, published between 1967 and 1978. The work is in four volumes, differing in content as follows: • ''Caratteri e storia della disciplina. La scrittura greca dalle origini all'età imperiale'' (Character and history of the discipline. Greek writing from its origins to the imperial age) (1967) •
Epigrafi di carattere pubblico (Epigraphs of a public nature) (1969) •
Epigrafi di carattere privato (Epigraphs of a private nature) (1974) •
Epigrafi sacre, pagane e cristiane (Sacred inscriptions, pagan and Christian) (1978) The work presents actual cases alongside theoretical explanations, providing the reader with a veritable "small anthology" of Greek inscriptions, with photographs, transcriptions, translations, commentary, and very often bibliographic references. Each volume includes a large bibliography. Because of a limited edition, the volumes of
Epigrafia Greca were soon exhausted. Guarducci subsequently wrote a fifth volume to serve as a compendium for the previous four. It was published in 1987 as ''L'epigrafia greca dalle origini al tardo impero'' (Greek epigraphy from its origins to the late Empire). ==Publications by Margherita Guarducci==