Description
In this book, Hella Eckardt offers new insights into literacy in the Roman world by examining the tools that enabled writing, such as inkwells, styli and tablets. Literacy was an important skill in the ancient world and power could be and often was, exercised through texts. Eckardt explores how writing equipment shaped practices such as posture and handwriting and her careful analysis of burial data shows considerable numbers of women and children interred with writing equipment, notably inkwells, in an effort to display status as well as age and gender. The volume offers a comprehensive review of recent approaches to literacy during Roman antiquity and adds a distinctive material turn to our understanding of this crucial skill and the embodied practices of its use. At the heart of this study lies the nature of the relationship between the material culture of writing and socio-cultural identities in the Roman period.
Chapter
Understanding Material Culture and Identities
Two The Practicalities of Literacy: Writing Implements in the Roman World
Writing Implements Used on Wax and Lead
Writing in Ink: Media and Implements
Other Objects Associated with Writing in Ink: Dividers, Rulers and Sponges
Writing Sets in the Roman World
Three Literacy as Technology and Practice
Who Wrote in the Roman World?
From Object to Practice: How and Where Were Writing Implements Used?
Four Materials and Production
Five Metal Inkwells in the Roman Empire
Elegant Early Double Inkwells
Decorated Gaulish? Inkwells
Other Stamped and Decorated First- to Second-Century Inkwells
Inkwells with Rotating Aperture Cover
Type Elsdorf-Cologne-Lamersdorf
Inkwells with Keyhole Aperture and Lead Mask Cover
Inkwells with Keyhole Aperture but Without Cover
Inkwells with Removable Lid and Chain
Inkwells with Removable Lid but No Surviving Chain
Inkwells with Tapering Body
Miscellaneous Inkwells with or without Incised Lines on the Body (Group)
Inkwells with Dished and Protruding Lids (Group)
Detached Aperture Covers and Lids
Enamelled Vessels of Type Johns
Chronology and Conclusion
Six A Practice Turn: Thinking about Inkwell Use
Portability and Double Inkwells
Seven The Spatial and Social Distribution of Inkwells
Social Distribution: Who Used Inkwells? Site Level Analysis
‘Small Settlements’, Villas, Rural and ‘Other’ Sites
Conclusion: Social Distribution Site Level Analysis
Social Distribution: Who Used Inkwells? Context Level Analysis
Hoards and Votive Deposits
Part III Writing Equipment in Funerary Contexts and the Expression of Identities
Eight Literacy as Performance: Self-Presentation of the Educated Elite?
Depicting Writing Equipment as a Badge or Symbol
Depicting the Act of Writing: Provincial Elites
Depicting Elites with a Scribe in Attendance
Nine Literacy and the Life Course: Gender
Inkwells from Female Graves
Inkwells from Male Graves
Ten Literacy and the Life Course: Age
Children’s Education from Written Sources and Iconography
Inkwells from Children’s Graves
Inkwells from Adult Double Burials and Family Groups
Eleven Literacy, the Body and Elite Identities: Writing and Status
Graves with Sets of Writing Equipment – Professional Scribes?
Graves with Game and Accounting Equipment
Professional Identities: Doctors and Other Healers
Graves with Objects Associated with Grooming
Oil Flasks and Unguent Vessels
Twelve Conclusion: Writing Empire through Material Culture
Writing and Power in the Roman World
：Literacies and Material Culture
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