Philip J. Boyes - The Social and Cultural Contexts of Historic Writing Practices

edited by

Philip J. Boyes, Philippa M. Steele and Natalia Elvira Astoreca

Published in the United Kingdom in 2021 by

OXBOW BOOKS

The Old Music Hall, 106108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JE

and in the United States by

OXBOW BOOKS

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Oxbow Books and the individual authors 2021

Hardback Edition: ISBN 978-1-78925-478-5

Digital Edition: ISBN 978-1-78925-479-2 (ePub)

Kindle Edition: ISBN 978-1-78925-480-8 (Mobi)

A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Control Number: 2021931167

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Front cover: Monk-scribe astride a wyvern, Metropolitan Museum of Art

D r P hilip J. B oyes

Faculty of Classics, University of Cambridge

Sidgwick Avenue

Cambridge

CB3 9DA

United Kingdom

D r N atalia E lvira A storeca

Faculty of Classics, University of Cambridge

Sidgwick Avenue

Cambridge

CB3 9DA

United Kingdom

D r S arah F inlayson

Institut fr Klassische Archologie und Byzantinische Archologie

Marstallhof 4

69117 Heidelberg

Germany

D r C cile G uillaume -P ey

Centre for South Asian Studies

Centre national de la recherche scientifique

Paris

France

J ulia -S ophie H eier

Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitt Mnchen Institut fr Nordische Philologie

Geschwister-Scholl-Platz 1 80539 Mnchen

Germany

P rofessor J ohn S. H enderson

Department of Anthropology

McGraw Hall

Cornell University

Ithaca, NY 14853

USA

D r N ancy H ighcock

Department of Archaeology

University of Cambridge

Cambridge

CB2 3DZ

K athryn H udson

Department of Linguistics

University at Buffalo

United States

D r V alentina M ignosa

Faculty of Classics

University of Oxford

United Kingdom

T heodore N ash

Kelsey Museum of Archaeology

434 South State Street

Ann Arbor, MI 48104

USA

D r A urlie N vot

Centre national de la recherche scientifique

Paris

France

P rofessor M arie L ouise N osch

Centre for Textile Research

Saxo Institute,

University of Copenhagen

Denmark

D r K arenleigh O vermann

University of Bergen

Faculty of Psychology

Department of Psychosocial Science

Postboks 7807

5020 Bergen

Norway

and

University of Colorado, Colorado Springs

Department of Anthropology

1420 Austin Bluffs Pkwy

Colorado Springs, CO 80918

USA

D r C hristian P rager

Universitt Bonn

Abteilung fr Altamerikanistik

Oxfordstrasse 15

53111 Bonn

Germany

D r P hilippa M. S teele

Faculty of Classics, University of Cambridge

Sidgwick Avenue

Cambridge

CB3 9DA

United Kingdom

P rofessor O lga Tribulato

Dipartimento di Studi Umanistici

Universit Ca Foscari Venezia

Dorsoduro 3484/D

30123 Venice

Italy

D r A gata U lanowska

Department of Aegean and Textile Archaeology

Faculty of Archaeology, University of Warsaw

Krakowskie Przedmiecie 26/28

00-927 Warsaw

Poland

A.J. W est

Leiden Institute of Area Studies (LIAS)

Matthias de Vrieshof 3

2311BZ Leiden

The Netherlands

P rofessor J ames W hitley

School of History, Archaeology and Religion

Cardiff University

John Percival Building Colum Road

Cardiff CF10 3EU

Wales, United Kingdom

This volume publishes papers presented at the conference Exploring the Social and Cultural Contexts of Historic Writing Systems, which was held at the Faculty of Classics, University of Cambridge on 1416 March 2019. This was the second conference organised under the banner of the project Contexts of and Relations Between Early Writing Systems (CREWS), which is dedicated to interdisciplinary exploration of writing practices in the East Mediterranean and Near East in the second and first millennia BC. The previous conference was published as Understanding Relations Between Scripts II: Early Alphabets (Boyes and Steele 2019). We are grateful to the whole CREWS team, including our visiting scholars, who not only contributed to the conference and this volume, but also to the creation of a positive and engaging research environment.

CREWS has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Unions Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No 677758). We would especially like to take this opportunity to thank the ERC for all the outstanding work it does to support new research, and in particular for the funding that has made possible not only this conference but the CREWS project itself. We are, as always, proud to fly the EU and ERC banners.

We are extremely grateful to the Faculty of Classics for hosting the conference, and to everyone who worked to help make the conference a success, especially our project administrator, Sarah Lewis, and Faculty staff including Tony Brinkman, Lina Undicino and Lucyna Prochnicka. In addition, we extend our thanks to all those who chaired sessions and the many friends and colleagues who volunteered to help with the smooth running of the conference.

It is worth noting that much of the production of this volume took place against the background of the 2020 global coronavirus pandemic, which affected the lives and work of all the contributors to varying degrees. We are very grateful to all the contributors who worked hard in these very difficult circumstances to produce their chapters, and to the peer reviewers who also in many cases went above and beyond the call of duty without even the prospect of being thanked in print by name. We are similarly grateful to our publishers at Oxbow for their understanding and patience.