Writing Matters: Italy in the First Millennium BCE

R. Whitehouse, Writing Matters: Italy in the First Millennium BCE (2024, Bloomsbury Academic)

The study of the epigraphy of 1st millennium BCE Italy has a long history, but has largely concentrated on the languages encoded in the inscriptions and their semantic meanings. This book takes a more holistic approach that looks not only at content, but also the archaeological contexts of the inscriptions and, in particular, the materiality of their ‘supports’: the artefacts and monuments on which the inscriptions occur.

The first writing in Italy was not a local invention, but was acquired from Phoenicians and Greeks in the 9th-8th centuries BCE. It was taken up by a number of indigenous communities to write their own languages, before these were eventually submerged by the spread of Latin.

In a series of theoretical, methodological and interpretative essays, Ruth Whitehouse explores different aspects of the inscribed objects and monuments, including what they were made of, how they were made and inscribed, how they were used and what happened to them after the end of their use-life. Placing materiality at the centre of study allows a reconsideration of the roles writing played in the lives of the individuals and groups who occupied Italy in the first millennium BCE

The volume is published by Bloomsbury as part of the UCL World Archaeology series. This series provides a home for exemplary scholarship which showcases high-quality research across the full spectrum of world archaeology, archaeological science, heritage studies (including conservation and museum studies), and cognate disciplines. 

It is available as a hard copy volume (ISBN 9781350412514) and e-book (ISBN 9781350412538) from the publisher's website.

Links

• Bloomsbury Academic