Everyday Writing in the Graeco-Roman East: Volume 69

ISBN-13: 9780520275799 / Angielski / Miękka / 2012 / 200 str.

Roger S Bagnall

Opis

Most of the everyday writing from the ancient worldthat is, informal writing not intended for a long life or wide public distributionhas perished. Reinterpreting the silences and blanks of the historical record, leading papyrologist Roger S. Bagnall convincingly argues that ordinary peoplefrom Britain to Egypt to Afghanistanused writing in their daily lives far more extensively than has been recognized. Marshalling new and little-known evidence, including remarkable graffiti recently discovered in Smyrna, Bagnall presents a fascinating analysis of writing in different segments of society. His book offers a new picture of literacy in the ancient world in which Aramaic rivals Greek and Latin as a great international language, and in which many other local languages develop means of written expression alongside these metropolitan tongues."

O autorze

Roger Bagnall is Director of the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World at New York University. Before joining the NYU faculty in 2007, he taught classics and history at Columbia University for 33 years. He specializes in the social and economic history of Hellenistic, Roman and Late Antique Egypt and directs the excavations at Amheida in the Dakhla Oasis in Egypt.