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Summary:

"In this book, Hella Eckardt offers new insights into literacy in the Roman world by examining the tools that enabled writing, such as inkwells, styli and tablets. Literacy was an important skill in the ancient world and power could be and often was, exercised through texts. Eckardt explores how writing equipment shaped practices such as posture and handwriting and her careful analysis of burial data shows considerable numbers of women and children interred with writing equipment, notably inkwells, in an effort to display status as well as age and gender. The volume offers a comprehensive review of recent approaches to literacy during Roman antiquity and adds a distinctive material turn to our understanding of this crucial skill and the embodied practices of its use. At the heart of this study lies the nature of the relationship between the material culture of writing and socio-cultural identities in the Roman period."-- [Provided by publisher]

Table of Contents:

• Part I. Understanding Literacies, Material Culture and Practice in the Roman World
• 1. Introduction: literacies, power and identities
• 2. The practicalities of literacy: writing implements in the Roman world
• 3. Literacy as technology and practice
• Part II. A Case Study
• 4. Materials and production
• 5. Metal inkwells in the Roman Empire
• 6. A practice turn: thinking about inkwell use
• 7. The spatial and social distribution of inkwells
• Part III. Writing Equipment in Funerary Contexts and the Expression of Identities
• 8. Literacy as performance: self-presentation of the educated elite?
• 9. Literacy and the life course: gender
• 10. Literacy and the life course: age
• 11. Literacy, the body and elite identities: writing and status
• 12. Conclusion: writing Empire through material culture.

Author/Creator:

Eckardt, Hella , author

Languages:

English

Language Notes:

Item content: English

Main Work:

Writing and power in the Roman world: literacies and material culture [by Eckardt, H.]

Other Related Resources:

Print version: Writing and power in the Roman world [by Eckardt, H.] (Cambridge, United Kingdom ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 2018 — ISBN 9781108418058; ISBN 1108418058; LCCN 2017022408; OCLC Number 986845705)

Subjects:

Writing materials and instruments

Literacy — Rome

Latin language — Written Latin

Literacy

Latin language

Rome (Empire)

General Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.
Description based on: Print version record.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xvi, 268 pages) : illustrations, map

Digital Characteristics:

text file

Call Numbers:

Z45 .E35 2018eb

ISBNs:

9781108284172 (electronic bk.)
1108284175 (electronic bk.)
9781108515825
1108515827
1108406270
9781108406277
9781108418058 [Invalid]
1108418058 [Invalid]
9781108406277 (paperback) [Invalid]

OCLC Numbers:

1090364001
1040622925 [Invalid]