Archaeologies of Text: Archaeology, Technology, and Ethics

Matthew T. Rutz, Morag Kersel

Oxbow Books, Dec 30, 2014 - Social Science - 278 pages

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.

Contents

• Introduction No Discipline is an Island Morag M Kersel and Matthew T Rutz: 1
• Case in Point The Persepolis Fortification Archive Matthew W Stolper: 14
• Space Time and Texts A Landscape Approach to the Classic Maya Hieroglyphic Record Nicholas P Carter: 31
• Now You See It Now You Dont The Dynamics of Archaeological and Epigraphic Landscapes from Coptic Egypt Scott Bucking: 59
• Articulating NeoAssyrian Imperialism at Tell Tayinat Timothy P Harrison: 80
• The Archaeology of Mesopotamian Extispicy Modeling Divination in the Old Babylonian Period Matthew T Rutz: 97
• The Ernest K Smith Collection of Shang Divination Inscriptions at Columbia University and the Evidence for Scribal Training at Anyang Adam Smith: 121
• Tracing Networks of Cuneiform Scholarship with Oracc GKAB and Google Earth Eleanor Robson: 142
• Ancient Relationships Modern Intellectual Horizons The Practical Challenges and Possibilities of Encoding Greek and Latin Inscriptions Lisa Anderso...: 164
• Forging History From Antiquity to the Modern Period Christopher A Rollston: 176
• WikiLeaks Text and Archaeology The Case of the Schøyen Incantation Bowls Neil J Brodie and Morag M Kersel: 198
• Do Restrictions on Publication of Undocumented Texts Promote Legitimacy? Patty Gerstenblith: 214
• Publishing Undocumented Texts Editorial Perspectives John F Cherry: 227
• Index: 245

About the author

Matthew Rutz is Assistant Professor of Egyptology and Ancient Western Asian Studies at Brown University. He works in the field of Assyriology, the interdisciplinary study of texts written in the cuneiform writing system from ancient Mesopotamia, specializing in the languages and cultures of this region with an emphasis on Akkadian (Babylonian/Assyrian) and Sumerian documents from the latter half of the second millennium BCE, the social and political history of Late Bronze Age Syria, and the study of ancient texts as archaeological objects.

Morag Kersel is Assistant Professor of Archaeology at DePaul University, Chicago. Her research interests include the Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age of the eastern Mediterranean and Levant, cultural heritage protection, the built environment, object biographies, museums, and archaeological tourism. Her work combines archaeological, archival and oral history research in order to understand the efficacy of cultural heritage law in protecting archaeological landscapes from looting.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Archaeologies of Text: Archaeology, Technology, and Ethics; Joukowsky Institute Publication
• Editors: Matthew T. Rutz, Morag Kersel
• Edition: illustrated
• Publisher: Oxbow Books, 2014
• ISBN: 178297766X, 9781782977667
• Length: 278 pages
• Subjects: Social Science / Archaeology