Archaeologies of Text: Archaeology, Technology, and Ethics [Paperback]

Matthew T. Rutz (Editor); Morag Kersel (Editors)

Details

Scholars working in a number of disciplines – archaeologists, classicists, epigraphers, papyrologists, Assyriologists, Egyptologists, Mayanists, philologists, and ancient historians of all stripes – routinely engage with ancient textual sources that are either material remains from the archaeological record or historical products of other connections between the ancient world and our own.

Examining the archaeology-text nexus from multiple perspectives, contributors to this volume discuss current theoretical and practical problems that have grown out of their work at the boundary of the division between archaeology and the study of early inscriptions. In 12 representative case-studies drawn from research in Asia, Africa, the Mediterranean, and Mesoamerica, scholars use various lenses to critically examine the interface between archaeology and the study of ancient texts, rethink the fragmentation of their various specialized disciplines, and illustrate the best in current approaches to contextual analysis.

The collection of essays also highlights recent trends in the development of documentation and dissemination technologies, engages with the ethical and intellectual quandaries presented by ancient inscriptions that lack archaeological context, and sets out to find profitable future directions for interdisciplinary research.

Table of Contents

1. Morag M. Kersel and Matthew T. Rutz / Introduction

2. Matthew W. Stolper / Case in Point: The Persepolis Fortification Archive

3. Nicholas P. Carter / Space, Time, and Texts: A Landscape Approach to the Classic Maya Hieroglyphic Record

4. Scott Bucking / Now You See it, Now You Don’t: The Dynamics of Archaeological and Epigraphic Landscapes from Coptic Egypt

5. Timothy P. Harrison / Articulating Neo-Assyrian Imperialism at Tell Tayinat

6. Matthew T. Rutz / The Archaeology of Mesopotamian Extispicy: Modeling Divination in the Old Babylonian Period

7. Adam Smith / The Ernest K. Smith Collection of Shang Divination Inscriptions at Columbia University and the Evidence for Scribal Training at Anyang

8. Eleanor Robson / Tracing Networks of Cuneiform Scholarship with Oracc, GKAB, and Google Earth

9. Lisa Anderson and Heidi Wendt / Ancient Relationships, Modern Intellectual Horizons: The Practical Challenges and Possibilities of Encoding Greek and Latin Inscriptions

10. Christopher A. Rollston / Forging History: From Antiquity to the Modern Period

11. Neil J. Brodie and Morag M. Kersel / WikiLeaks, Texts, and Archaeology: The Case of the Schøyen Incantation Bowls

12. Patty Gerstenblith / Do Restrictions on Publication of Undocumented Texts Promote Legitimacy?

13. John F. Cherry / Publishing Undocumented Texts: Editorial Perspectives