Too Much Writing, Too Few Scribes: Extra-Scribal Writing in the Late Bronze Age Mediterranean (1650-1100 BCE)
Edited by Cassandra M. Donnelly
Paperback (Published)
(May 2025)
ISBN: 9781803279954
8.07 x 11.46 inches
Price: $64.00
In stock
‘Extra-scribal’ writing encompasses a myriad of writing practices, from potmarking to graffiti to text erasure, often overlooked by scholars. This volume examines Bronze Age eastern Mediterranean and Aegean writing on atypical media, highlighting interdisciplinary insights from various fields and theoretical models.
‘Extra-scribal’ writing encompasses a myriad of writing practices, from potmarking to graffiti to text erasure, often deemed unworthy of study by previous generations of scholars. The producers of ‘extra-scribal’ texts often operated in the margins of the palatial and administrative centers of their day. They wrote on and marked atypical writing media: not clay tablets or papyrus but ostraca, stone, and vessels. Focusing on the Bronze Age eastern Mediterranean and Aegean, regions rich in scripts and languages, this volume highlights similarities and differences in writing and marking practices across time and place. Contributors come from the fields of Egyptology, Hittitology, Ancient Near Eastern archaeology, Aegean prehistory, Cypriot archaeology, and Information Sciences, applying a range of theoretical models to the subject matter. The volume reflects an interdisciplinary approach to a set of topics only now coming to the fore in scholarly literature.
List of Figures Too much writing, too few scribes: Extra-scribal writing in the Late Bronze Age Mediterranean (1650-1100 BCE) - Cassandra M. Donnelly Section I: Craft Literacy and Non-Scribal Writing Potmarks in Context: Some Preliminary Observations on Marked Vessels from Hala Sultan Tekke, Cyprus - Teresa Burge A Desert Writing Idiom: North Kharga's Ancient Carvers Modify and Appropriate Standard Egyptian Scribal Practices - Nikolaos Lazaridis Non-Administrative Linear A Writing Practices: The Case of Stone Vessels (c.1800-1450 BC) - Mnemosyne Rice Material Matters: The Influence of Materiality on the Structure and Palaeography of the Linear A script of Bronze Age Crete - Ester Salgarella Section II: Meaning Making Unique and Universal: The Workmen's Identity Marks from Deir el-Medina in Comparative Perspective - K. V. J. van der Moezel This Means That: Processes of Fixing and Conveying Meaning with Seals - Sarah Finlayson Tracing Graphic Signs of the Byblos Script in the Bronze Age Potmarking Systems in Lebanon - Metoda Persin Section III: Materiality Eternal Works: Stone as a Book Medium in Pharaonic Egypt - Chana Algarvio Materials of Writing: Ostraca Use at Tell Edfu - Kathryn Bandy Un-Writing Text: Intentional Erasing and Damaging of Script in Ancient Egypt - Elena L. Hertel Hittite and Neo-Hittite Writing Styli with Pointed Tips: Catalog, Technology, Significance - Michele Cammarosano,
Too much writing, too few scribes: Extra-scribal writing in the Late Bronze Age Mediterranean (1650-1100 BCE) – Cassandra M. Donnelly
Section I: Craft Literacy and Non-Scribal Writing
Potmarks in Context: Some Preliminary Observations on Marked Vessels from Hala Sultan Tekke, Cyprus – Teresa Bürge
A Desert Writing Idiom: North Kharga’s Ancient Carvers Modify and Appropriate Standard Egyptian Scribal Practices – Nikolaos Lazaridis
Non-Administrative Linear A Writing Practices: The Case of Stone Vessels (c.1800-1450 BC) – Mnemosyne Rice
Material Matters: The Influence of Materiality on the Structure and Palaeography of the Linear A script of Bronze Age Crete – Ester Salgarella
Section II: Meaning Making
Unique and Universal: The Workmen’s Identity Marks from Deir el-Medina in Comparative Perspective – K. V. J. van der Moezel
This Means That: Processes of Fixing and Conveying Meaning with Seals – Sarah Finlayson
Tracing Graphic Signs of the Byblos Script in the Bronze Age Potmarking Systems in Lebanon – Metoda Peršin
Section III: Materiality
Eternal Works: Stone as a Book Medium in Pharaonic Egypt – Chana Algarvio
Materials of Writing: Ostraca Use at Tell Edfu – Kathryn Bandy
Un-Writing Text: Intentional Erasing and Damaging of Script in Ancient Egypt – Elena L. Hertel
Hittite and Neo-Hittite Writing Styli with Pointed Tips: Catalog, Technology, Significance – Michele Cammarosano
Cassandra Donnelly is a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Cyprus with the ERC Starting Grant (947749) ComPAS project (“Commercial Patterns Across the Sea”) where she studies Cypro-Minoan script and marks incised on Canaanite Jars. Her training is in Aegean scripts and languages, with a specialization in the Cypro-Minoan script.
- Edited by Cassandra M. Donnelly
Other Titles in this Series
Mortals, Deities and Divine Symbols: Rethinking Ancient Images from the Levant to Mesopotamia
Studies Offered to Tallay Ornan
Stone Tools in the Ancient Near East and Egypt
Ground stone tools, rock-cut installations and stone vessels from Prehistory to Late Antiquity
What Difference Does Time Make? Papers from the Ancient and Islamic Middle East and China in Honor of the 100th Anniversary of the Midwest Branch of the American Oriental Society
Composite Artefacts in the Ancient Near East
Exhibiting an imaginative materiality, showing a genealogical nature
New Research on Old Collections in Southwest Asian Archaeology
Proceedings of the Workshop Held at the British Museum, London, 31 July – 2 August, 2023
Par la bêche et le stylet! Cultures et sociétés syro-mésopotamiennes
Mélanges offerts à Olivier Rouault
Penser l’espace en Mésopotamie : contributions à la compréhension spatiale à travers les aménagements
Scripta memoriae Jean-Claude Margueron dedicata
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