Ancient Literacies

(Marvins-Underground-K-12) #1

and amphorae come into this category, along with the painted labels on


amphorae. I will return to these below, but for the moment I want to note


simply that they are typically highly abbreviated and often make consid-


erable use of symbols, especially numerals.


A fourth and final group, very numerous indeed, are short texts on


portable objects that are not integral to their use. Most of these are objects


of some value, so metal vessels are more likely to have writing on them


than ceramic, and terra sigillata than other local wares. These are all very


short and do not generally use abbreviations. They vary enormously in


nature from elegant labels engraved on silver spoons at the time of their


manufacture to scratched graffiti added long after, some of which are


pretty clearly not real words. But almost all of these seem to link an object


with a person, usually human but occasionally a god. The same could, of


course, be said for almost all religious uses of writing.
33
But whereas curse


tablets, votive inscriptions, and altars—most of them also votives—tend


to be highly formulaic, the majority of texts on portable objects arenot.



  1. INSTRUMENTUM DOMESTICUM


Instrumentum domesticumand the names added to personal objects to-


gether make up the bulk of surviving writing from the Roman world.


Instrumentum domesticum—my third category, the kind of texts we find


on objects of mass production like bricks, tiles, and amphorae—is char-


acterized by very short, highly abbreviated texts that often make use of


symbols (including numerals). If there is a case to be made for a special-


ized literacy in antiquity it is in the understanding of these symbols, their


codes, and the protocols according to which they were ordered.


Something similar could be said of monumental inscriptions, al-


though they were not mass produced in any meaningful sense. The family


resemblance between monumental epigraphy and the labels and stamps


used by manufacturers and traders is perhaps another sign of how con-


nected up different Roman literacies were. Inscriptions, too, made fre-


quent use of numbers, often to indicate dates and ages but also to identify


military units or sums of money; often these are accompanied by standard


symbols denoting particular units of quantity, currency, or time. Inscrip-


tions and stamps alike also often make careful use of standardized layouts.


Actual quotes or shared signs—apart from numbers—are rare of course:


what we are observing is rather a shared set of cultural conventions about


how to produce short, precise, and meaningful texts, legible to strangers.


Those conventions, too, form part of the logic evoked by gaming boards,


legal documents, and ephemeral military records. Appropriate formatting



  1. Beard 1991, 44 8 for the prominence of names in religious inscriptions and
    some suggestions about its significance.


56 Situating Literacies

Free download pdf