Looking at the Material: One Hundred Years of Studying Ostraca from Egypt [chapter]

Clementina Caputo, Cornelia Ritter-Schmalz, Raphael Schwitter
2019 Antike Texte und ihre Materialität  
Ceramic potsherds were one of the most commonly used writing materials in the ancient Mediterranean and beyond. The widespread use of pottery fragments for writing was probably due to the fact that they were easy to find and came at no cost to anyone who could write.1 Inscribed sherds, which are usually referred to as 'ostraca', are studied primarily for the texts they bear, without much attention paid to the material aspects of the writing support, such as the type of clay, the treatment of
more » ... surface, or the type of vessel from which the sherd came. Ceramologists rarely get involved in the analysis of ostraca because sherds chosen for inscribing often don't come from the so-called 'diagnostic' parts of the vessel, such as rims, handles, or foots, but from the body and may therefore not be particularly informative for understanding the usage and distribution of pottery. Although numerous editions of ostraca published during the last century reveal little interest beyond textual parameters on the part of the editors, some studies stand out for the attention paid to material aspects of inscribed sherds and especially for the resulting observations and conclusions. In this contribution, I will first provide an overview of several such studies in which observations regarding physical properties of ostraca-even though far from a systematic approach and with a focus on peculiarities-contribute to the identification and better understanding of practices associated with their usage. I will then discuss more recent attempts at developing consistent and systematic methodologies in the study of ostraca through instances of recent or on-going research, including my own. Throughout, I will be pointing out ceramological parameters of ostraca, the recording and analyzing of which have the potential to render the application of multidisciplinary methodologies in the study of ostraca more successful.
doi:10.1515/9783110641042-006 fatcat:ymruuyhkzfcifjasb6jeq6v3hu