Jan 7

Question 1

What is classical archaeology

Answer 1

Classical archaeology is a branch of classical studies; its objective is to use material evidence to throw light on the other, non-material cultural achievements of the Ancient Greeks and Romans, preserved for us mainly through the medium of written texts. For this reason, it can hardly participate in the aims, the theories or the debates of archaeology, which cannot possibly share the same objective.

Question 2

who are the authors of ancient text

Answer 2

• Upper class men
  
  • Limited interest in the life of women, commonsers, and slaves
• Worried about agriculture, history, military and politics
  
  • Do no speak about unrelated technical or manufacture processes
    
    • Pottery production
    • Textile production

Question 3

where are most ancient texts from

Answer 3

• Most are from an urban perspective
  
  • Most authors lived in Rome
  • Civilization related to cities
  • However, most of the population in the Roman world (2/3) lived in the countryside.

Question 4

what are four issues with transmission of ancient text

Answer 4

• Issues with chronology and transmission:
• In many cases, written centuries after the events or works they describe
• A small portion of everything written has survived
  
  • Only manuscripts with subjects interesting to the literate elite of later periods have survived
• Repeated selection and copying
  
  • Can affect the form and the content
    
    • Voluntarily
    • Involuntarily

Question 5

what is the Tabula Peutigeriana

Answer 5

The tabula Peutigeriana was a map, potentially reconstructed multiple times as it contains both the city of constantinople and town of pompeii, which were separated by hundreds of years.

Question 6

Who are written sources Ethnically based

Answer 6

• Ethnically biased
  
  • Little interest in the ways of foreigners
    
    • Dismiss the achievements and values of their easterna nd western neighbours’ “barbarians” “others”
  • Romans found their ideals in the traditional Italian landscaoe
    
    • When authors mention provinces, it’s often from a metropolitan lens (center-periphery)

Question 7

what did romans view the past as

Answer 7

• Past as a glorious age
  
  • Present is decadent
  • Constant attitude from Hesiod onward
    
    • Railed against the mores of their own time
    • Roman Empire - praised the Republic
    • Pliny the Elder: “Our ancestors lived the proper life; our contemporaries are corrupt”

Question 8

What are 12 limitations of ancient sources

Answer 8

• Authorship is socially narrow
• Limited interest in women, commoners, enslaved people
• Genre drives distortion
• Moralizing and exempla (people used as lessons, not typical cases)
• Audience + self-presentation
• Urban/metropolitan lens
• Everyday production is often invisible
• Normative ideas vs lived reality
• Survival bias
• Time/place compression
• Numbers and facts ca be rhetorical
• One-source conclusions are fragile

Question 9

what are some pros of inscriptions, tablets, and papyri

Answer 9

• Inscriptions, tablets and papyri avoid some of the problems present in manuscript transmission
  
  • They come directly from the past
  • No problem with copies

Question 10

what are inscriptions

Answer 10

• Inscriptions were public documents
  
  • Designed to be displayed
  • Offer a biased perspective

Question 11

what is Papyri

Answer 11

• Papyri coming in its grand majority from Egypt
  
  • Do not allow generalization
  • cannot be extended to all the mediterranean

Question 12

What is the only Roman library

Answer 12

• The only Roman library known to have survived from antiquity was discovered in the Villa of the Papyri
• A collection of 1800 carbonized papyri was discovered
• Together with four busts
  
  • Philosophers Epicurus, Hermarchus and Zeno
  • The orator Demosthenes
• To date only half of the papyri have been read
  
  • 3/4 of the papyri opened so far are works of Philodemus of Gadara
    
    • Minor Epicurean philosopher

Question 13

what are the Vindolanda tablets

Answer 13

• The Vindolanda tablets are some of the oldest surviving handwritten documents in Britain
• The documents record official military matters as well as personal messages to and from members of the garrison, including their families and their slaves

Question 14

how can inscriptions be propaganda

Answer 14

• A good example is the pillar recording the worl of the military engineer Nonius Datus
  
  • Was sent to help local authorities (modern Algeria)
  • Dig a water supply tunnel through a hill
  • Nonium provided technical information
    
    • Encouraged competition between teams
    • Work completed accurately and quickly
• The inscription is a celebration of the triumph of Roman technology over North African “Wilderness”
  
  • Water-poor territory; disorganized workforce in need of guidance

Question 15

What can epitaphs show us

Answer 15

Epitaph from Arles (3C AD)

• Tomb of Quintes Candidus Benignus, master builder of the Arles Association. He had the full extent of the building art, dedication, knowledge, and discretion… nobody was more knowledgable than that; nobody could defeat him; he knew how to make instruments and direct flow of waters…
• How they wanted to be remembered
  
  • Pride in their activities
  • Sometimes literary pretensions