Scribbling Through History - by Chloé Ragazzoli & Ömür Harmansah & Chiara Salvador & Elizabeth Frood (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

For most people the mention of graffiti conjures up notions of subversion, defacement, and underground culture. Yet, the term was coined by classical archaeologists excavating Pompeii in the 19th century and has been embraced by modern street culture: graffiti have been left on natural sites and public monuments for tens of thousands of years. They mark a position in time, a relation to space, and a territorial claim. They are also material displays of individual identity and social interaction. As an effective, socially accepted medium of self-definition, ancient graffiti may be compared to the modern use of social networks.

This book shows that graffiti, a very ancient practice long hidden behind modern disapproval and street culture, have been integral to literacy and self-expression throughout history. Graffiti bear witness to social events and religious practices that are difficult to track in normative and official discourses. This book addresses graffiti practices, in cultures ranging from ancient China and Egypt through early modern Europe to modern Turkey, in illustrated short essays by specialists. It proposes a holistic approach to graffiti as a cultural practice that plays a key role in crucial aspects of human experience and how they can be understood.

Review Quotes

"This volume highlights the enormous value of using ancient graffiti to understand the ancient environment, social interactions, and, ultimately, the human experience." --American Journal of Archaeology

"Though historical specificities and differences are made clear in the essays, a shared quality does emerge over this collection. Various approaches are tapped to explain this, most compellingly the idea of marginality discussed in Janine Rogers's "Graffiti and the Medieval Margin"." --Times Literary Supplement

"Fascinating ... All-in-all this is a nice book which provides a different way of thinking about graffiti." --Graffiti Review

"This volume actualizes a unique meeting of different corpora of graffiti, treating graffiti making as a "practice" that is well-embedded in its immediate physical and socio-cultural context." --Bryn Mawr Classical Review

"These fascinating local studies demonstrate the importance of graffiti as an archival resource and as a topic of rising conceptual significance." --Juliet Fleming, Professor of English, NYU, USA

"Offers an excellent introduction to, and many astute observations on, the issues and methodologies involved in studying ancient (and modern) graffiti and is thus recommended to anyone working on this fascinating category of evidence." --Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists

About the Author

Chloé Ragazzoli is Associate Professor of Egyptology at the History Faculty of University Paris Sorbonne, France. She is the author of Eloge de la Ville. Histoire et Littérature (2008) and La grotte des scribes à Deir el-Bahari. La tombe MMA 504 et ses graffiti (forthcoming).

Ömür Harmansah is Associate Professor of Art History, University of Illinois at Chicago, USA. His work focuses on the art and material culture of the ancient Near Eastern world, with particular emphasis on Anatolia, Syria and Mesopotamia. He is the author of Cities and the Shaping of Memory in the Ancient Near East (2013) and Place, Memory and Healing: An Archaeology of Anatolian Rock Monuments (2015).

Chiara Salvador is reading for a doctorate in Egyptology at the University of Oxford, UK. Her research treats a corpus of hieratic, hieroglyphic and figural graffiti from the temple complex of Karnak, in modern Luxor with the support of the Centre Franco-Égyptien d'Étude des Temples de Karnak.

Elizabeth Frood is Associate Professor of Egyptology and Fellow of St Cross College, University of Oxford, UK. She is author of Biographical Texts from Ramessid Egypt (2007). She is currently preparing publications of graffiti from two areas of the temple complex at Karnak, in collaboration with the Centre Franco-Égyptien d'Étude des Temples de Karnak.