Ancient Literacies

Jordan, David R. 2003. ‘‘A Letter from the Banker Pasion.’’ In Jordan and Traill 2003: 23 39 (Appendix A: Corpus of Personal Let ...

Rodrı ́guezSomolinos, Helena. 1996. ‘‘The Commercial Transaction of the Pech Maho Lead: A New Interpretation.’’ZPE111: 74 8. Sae ...

3 Literacy or Literacies in Rome? Greg Woolf A great deal is now agreed about Roman uses of writing. It is certain that relative ...

possessed them, by the methods and institutions through which they were imparted and acquired, by the languages and kinds of tex ...

Aramaic on clay tablets and papyrus. The Iranian elite themselves were not particularly defined by their facility with letters.^ ...

be told to show the democratizing potential of writing. The inclusion in muchpopularislegislation of clauses requiring its promi ...

by these strategies of control to those subjects who were able to master writing or gain access to those who had. This is a very ...

consequence of empire had been the creation of a complex urban world, one where even the essentials of life had to be obtained t ...

institoresthe Roman jurists conceived of a mass of written communica- tions linking them and their principals: these included re ...

and social milieu, have often been attested.^24 Rome was not one of them. As a result, transactions were easier between loosely ...

measure them.^28 There have been some indicative studies of the graffiti from the province, which demonstrate that graffiti were ...

Weights, Gold Vessels, Silver Vessels, Bronze Vessels, Lead Vessels, Pewter Vessels, Shale Vessels, Glass Vessels, Spoons Brooc ...

and amphorae come into this category, along with the painted labels on amphorae. I will return to these below, but for the momen ...

makes documents easier to read or scan quickly. Standardized formats reduce the number of words needed, and present the viewer w ...

long, even sealed, and consumers want it fresh, so there are no dates on Dressel 20 amphorae. Wine is different. Consular years ...

that most characteristic commodity, the slave. The notion of a slave mode of production is not widely subscribed to in the form ...

NAMES AND THINGS Alongside this proliferation of texts written for strangers with limited but precise reading skills, there wa ...

Was there anything especially Roman about the fixing of personal names through writing? That personal names are particularly com ...

colonization and land distribution, taxation, senatorial and magisterial business, the archiving of laws, the management of grai ...

make clear that the only place that records of ancient decisions or actions could be found were in the private archives of those ...