Writing Matters: Italy in the First Millennium BCE

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Professor Ruth Whitehouse Ruth Whitehouse (Ucl Institute of Archaeology University College London UK)

Writing Matters

Italy in the First Millennium BCE

Professor Ruth Whitehouse, Ruth Whitehouse (Ucl Institute of Archaeology University College London UK)

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English

Bloomsbury Academic
03 October 2024

Palaeography (history of writing); Ancient history: to c 500 CE; Archaeology by period & region; Social & cultural anthropology

Series: UCL World Archaeology Series

The epigraphy of 1st-millennium-BCE Italy has been studied for many years, but these studies have largely concentrated on the languages encoded in the inscriptions and their semantic meanings. This book takes a more holistic approach that looks not only at content, but also the archaeological contexts of the inscriptions and the materiality of their 'supports': the artefacts and monuments on which the inscriptions occur.

The first writing in Italy was not a local invention, but was introduced by the Phoenicians and Greeks in the 9th–8th centuries BCE. It was taken up by number of indigenous communities over the subsequent centuries to write their own languages, before these were eventually submerged by the spread of Latin.

In a series of theoretical, methodological and interpretative essays, Ruth Whitehouse explores what can be learned about how writing was used by these communities and what it meant to them. The bodies of data considered relate to Venetic and Raetic (the northeast), Lepontic (the northwest), Messapic (the southeast) and Etruscan (west central Italy, extending also into Campania in the south and the Po plain in the north). While not a comprehensive survey, there are enough different groups to allow a comparative approach to be adopted. Analysis of the datasets is able to reveal the similarities and differences between them, as well as identify features that were widespread in 1st-millennium-BCE Italy and others that were more idiosyncratic and specific to particular cultural groups. Placing materiality at the centre of study allows a reconsideration of the roles writing played in the lives of the individuals and groups who occupied Italy in the 1st millennium BCE.

By: Professor Ruth Whitehouse
Edited by: Ruth Whitehouse (Ucl Institute of Archaeology University College London UK)
Imprint: Bloomsbury Academic
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 234mm, Width: 156mm, Spine: 25mm
Weight: 454g
ISBN: 9781350412514
ISBN 10: 1350412511
Series: UCL World Archaeology Series
Pages: 296
Publication Date: 03 October 2024
Audience: Professional and scholarly , Undergraduate
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

List of Figures List of Tables Acknowledgements Prologue 1. Introduction 2. Approaches to the Study of Writing 3. A Material Typology 4. Archaeological Context, Materiality and Content in the Italian Databases 5. Agency and Production: A Chaîne Opératoire Approach 6. What Difference Does Writing Make? 7. Objects That Speak 8. The Fetishisation of Writing 9. What's in a Name? 10. Gender, Writing and Objects 11. Writing in Society 12. Conclusions Bibliography Index

Ruth Whitehouse is Emeritus Professor of Archaeology at the UCL Institute of Archaeology, University College London, UK.