Ancient Graffiti (Archaeology)

Indus inscriptions hold the key to unlocking the history of pre-Iron Age India and all Indo-European peoples but remain undeciphered for over a century. All prior attempts have been partial, unsatisfactory and unfalsifiable. We decipher the Indus script by treating it as a large cryptogram as described by Claude Shannon. We decipher every sign sequentially using regular expressions and set-intersection. Indus script is discovered to be proto-abugida segmental with signs for consonants and vowels. Indus inscriptions are in grammatically correct post-Vedic Sanskrit. Variants of 76 allographs constitute most signs. Conjunct signs constitute the rest. Our decipherment can read every inscription and we translate 500+ inscriptions including the 50+ longest, 50+ shortest and 400+ medium-sized inscriptions including 100+ inscriptions with conjunct signs. We comfortably surpass Shannon’s criteria for a credible cryptogram decipherment. Brahmi glyphs are discovered to be standardized Indus signs. We find significant continuation of Indus linguistic features and cultural elements in post-bronze age India.

Graffiti in Palace of Ludwigsburg - part of the conference about historical Graffiti in Munich 2017. Here a selection of my article.
Flyer of publication: http://www.steiner-verlag.de/fileadmin/Dateien/Steiner/Presseblaetter/9783515122047_f.pdf

Order: http://www.steiner-verlag.de/reihe/view/titel/61548.html

in : Scholz M., Horster M. (éd), Lesen und Schreiben in den römischen Provinzen. Schriftliche Kommunikation im Alltagsleben. Akten des 2. Internationalen Kolloquiums von DUCTUS- Association internationale pour l'étude des inscriptions mineures, RGZM Mainz, 15.-17. Juni 2011, Mainz, Verlag des Römisch-Germanischen Zentralmuseums, 2015, p. 229-233

Los conventos novohispanos poseían, desde el siglo XVI, espacios destinados como cárceles para encerrar a religiosos que violaran la Regla o las Constituciones. Estos lugares, conocidos como cárceles, son quizá de los más difíciles de identificar en la actualidad, por ello, su interés reside en saber dónde se encontraban y los aspectos sociales que rodeaban los castigos.
En el convento agustino de Valladolid de Michoacán, cabeza de la Provincia de San Nicolás de Tolentino, existió una cárcel que fue descubierta de manera circunstancial mientras se realizaban algunos trabajos de decoración de un corredor del claustro. Nuestro descubrimiento e importancia del mismo fue comunicado al entonces prior, fray Nicolás Morales, quien tuvo la disposición para que este espacio se conservara.
La cárcel del convento aún guarda muchos secretos, ocultos bajo capas de pintura que algún día serán develados y podremos obtener una mejor idea de la cotidianeidad de la vida de los frailes agustinos en los siglos XVII y XVIII.

As is well-known, the ḥarrah or basalt desert of southern Syria, north-eastern Jordan and northern Saudi Arabia is full of inscriptions and the content of the vast majority (the so-called ‘Safaitic’ inscriptions) suggest that they were carved by nomads. But there are also Greek graffiti carved by members of nomadic social groups as well as by people who had travelled from the settled areas of the Ḥawrān, or further. Others carved their graffiti in Safaitic, while claiming to be Nabataeans. There are even references to settlements of nomadic tribes in the desert. What does all this mean? In this paper, I will explore the interaction of nomadism and sedentarism in this part of the badia during the late Hellenistic and early Roman periods through the lens of the casual writings of individuals and will attempt to show how the traditional antithesis of the ‘Desert and the Sown’ hinders, rather than helps, our understanding of the ancient societies there.

This chapter examines the figural graffiti that may have been the work of children at Pompeii, Herculaneum, and Stabiae through a theoretical framework of agency and considering patterns as to the subject matter of the graffiti and its locations within the towns and buildings.

This panel set out to explore the popular and scholarly literature on graffiti and street art, to assess what has been accomplished in these fields, and where scholarly research in the fields of criminology, criminal justice and allied social sciences and humanities must go to better understand these largely urban phenomena.

par Elvira GONZÁLEZ et Bernat OLIVER, dans "La pierre comme porteur de messages du chantier de construction et de la vie du bâtiment. Actes du XXIe Colloque International de Glyptographie (du 8 au 14 juillet 2018, Amay, Belgique)"

ISBN 978-2-87457-115-2

Table des matières et détails sur http://www.safran.be/proddetail.php?prod=CIRG2019

The results of a non-invasive raking light and measured photographic survey of graffiti inscriptions and related markings located in the designated area in advance of the commencement of enabling works associated with the relocation of the organ loft. The purpose of the present survey was to record the location and details of the graffiti, and to assess their origin and the information presented by these inscriptions.

The exact interpretation of graffiti depends on the capacity of the
epigraphist to distinguish those signs with which the
scriptor
intended
to express his thought from other casual irregularites on the
wall. In the process of determining which signs belong to the text,
the epigraphist is, however, sometimes guided by the “eyes of the
mind” and chooses those signs which correspond best to his idea of
the text. A physical analysis of the signs using new technology may
help an “objective” reading of the text, at least showing which signs
were traced with the same instrument and thus excluding those
which are not pertinent and which we may define as the “background
noise” of the wall. New technology also makes it easier to
read faded
tituli picti
, showing otherwise invisible traces of pigmentation.
This paper presents some experiences of reading different
kinds of inscriptions on walls and describes the technological
methods developed especially for this purpose.

Ancient graffiti - hundreds of thousands of informal, ephemeral texts spanning millennia - offer a patchwork of fragmentary conversations in a variety of languages spread across the Mediterranean world. Cut, painted, inked or traced in charcoal, the surviving graffiti present a layer of lived experience in the ancient world unavailable from other sources. "Graffiti in Antiquity" reveals how and why the inhabitants of Greece and Rome - men and women and free and enslaved - formulated written and visual messages about themselves and the world around them as graffiti. The sources - drawn from 800 BCE to 600 CE - are examined both within their individual historical, cultural and archaeological contexts and thematically, allowing for an exploration of social identity in the urban society of the ancient world. An analysis of one of the most lively and engaged forms of personal communication and protest, "Graffiti in Antiquity" introduces a new way of reading sociocultural relationships among ordinary people living in the ancient world.

A short introduction of the study of graffiti in the context of (armed) conflict and the field of (conflict) archaeology, giving insight into some basic definitions, opinions, observations and possibilities regarding the subject.

This article is a brief introduction to my research into the matter of conflict-related graffiti, in which I am specialising.
It was published in Kunsthistorisch Tijdschrift Desipientia 21:2 'Kunst en Conflict'.

Geritzte Inschriften in den Wohnhäusern Pompejis Aus Pompeji stammen mehrere tausend informeller Wandinschriften, die bei den Ausgrabungen zwar dokumentiert, aber nur sehr selektiv untersucht wurden. Für die damals neuartige Inschriftengattung prägte man im 19. Jahrhundert den Begriff " Graffiti", der heute für eine Vielzahl ganz unterschiedlicher Schrift-und Textformen verwendet wird. Assoziationen zu modernen Graffiti-Writings und Taggings werden dabei häufig leichtfertig auf antike Graffiti übertragen. Dabei stammt ein Großteil der pompejanischen Ritzinschriften aus den Innenräumen von Wohnhäusern und wirft damit die Frage nach ihrer Akzeptanz und Wahrnehmung auf. Polly Lohmann nähert sich den antiken Graffiti im Vergleich mit ihren modernen Namenspendants einerseits, mit anderen antiken Inschriften, Texten und Bildern andererseits. Fallstudien stellen einzelne Wohnhäuser mit ihren Graffiti vor, und in kontextübergreifenden Vergleichen werden Bezüge zu anderen Text-und Bildgattungen des urbanen Raums aufgezeigt. Sie machen deutlich, dass die pompejanischen Graffiti vielfach von dem geprägt waren, was man im Alltag sah und erlebte.

This paper deals with the subject of Viking Age iconography as source material for rigging details and sail technology of Viking Age ships. The survey consists of two parts: 1) an iconographical analysis of Scandinavian ship motifs c. 750-1050 AD, in particular motifs from the monumental picture stones of Gotland, but also from coins, rune stones and graffiti. 2) a critical analysis of the methods used in reconstructing Viking Age ships’ rigging and sail during the last 20 years. It is concluded that a major part of the ship motifs are a fairly reliable source of Viking Age ship technology, and that most of the vessels depicted are warships with low and wide square sails. Furthermore it is concluded that the methods used in sail reconstruction are often based too strongly on ethnographical sources; despite the fact that this material does not correspond visually with the ship motifs of the Viking Age. This thesis does not entirely reject the ethno-archaeological reconstruction method, but proposes a more complex perception of Viking Age ships’ sail. It is suggested that the long and slender warships were equipped with low square sails, and that these vessels were not constructed primarily to tack against the wind.

Whilst the study of church monuments is an extensive field, there is one area of study that has until recently seen relatively little scholarly attention, being the study of informal commemorative inscriptions recorded in graffiti. The recent establishment of large scale volunteer-led church graffiti surveys has documented numerous examples of these informal memorials across the whole of the UK, creating a new, and previously almost unknown, corpus of material for study. This article highlights a small selection of these recent discoveries, and offers some interpretation as to the motivation behind their creation.

Roman culture is essentially epigraphic. Since the first studies on this civilization, mainly a result of the discoveries of Herculaneum and Pompeii, it has been called “the culture of epigraphy”, due to the variety of texts that report on different topics and conventional motifs. In front of public and monumental inscriptions there is also what called minor epigraphy, whose support was, basically, the wall: the famous graffiti and dipinti. The grafito is the written text or drawing on the wall with coal, while the dipinto is the written text on the wall with paint. Both inscriptions provide exceptional information about the life and customs of their time: anonymous authors left on the walls of their homes, their establishments or even on public walls testimony of their beliefs and their personal situations. These inscriptions are spontaneous, immediate writings, whose momentary need does not imply permanence in time, but they are designed to have a precise function in the “now”.
From the point of view of the ancient linguistics, they have provided important information about Vulgar Latin and its evolution. Why to study these epigraphic testimonies of the insula VII, 6? This insula was first excavated between 1760, 1761 and 1762 by the military engineers Roque Joaquín de Alcubierre and Karl Weber, who worked under the orders and patronage of King Carlos III. During the nineteenth century, the Italian archaeologist Giuseppe Fiorelli collected all that information generated by the two engineers from the files and published it a century later. Between 1909 and 1910, the second major excavation of the insula was conducted by Giuseppe Spano: he was the first archaeologist to excavate it completely, he left all well documented (including photos and maps) and collected the graffiti and dipinti which he found while advancing his work.
However, in a parallel way and concerning to the political sphere, Mussolini imposed a fascist government based on cultural policy, so he controlled all the archaeological wealth of Italy and used it for the benefit of his party. Precisely because of the importance that Mussolini granted to Pompeii and, as many Germans hid in the basements of some of its excavated houses, the ancient city suffered irreparable damage during World War II. Specifically, insula VII, 6 was bombed on September 13th 1943. Precisely for this, we owe so much to the written testimony of Spano, because otherwise we would never have known of the existence of the graffiti and dipinti of this insula. Some authors say that it was the most affected by far, the most demolished and forgotten of the history of Pompeii, the real “Cinderella” of the excavations. Despite the attempts, of Vitiello Pietro to restore the VII, 6, in 1950, it fell into oblivion. With this work the main objective of the author has been to collect and organize all the epigraphic documentation found in this insula, since excavations began in this area of Pompeii until the documentation which appears today. So a corpus of inscriptions with a total of 174 documents has been created. Later, a relevant epigraphic study has been carried out with its subsequent conclusions.

Part 2 of a presentation on various types of graffiti from Pompeii and Herculaneum given to Latin students at Texas Tech University. Department of Classics and the Lubbock Chapter of the Archaeological Institute of America, invited speaker, ‘Children’s Graffiti in Pompeii and Herculaneum,’ Texas Tech University, Lubbock, Texas, March 2014.

The Colossi of Memnon are two monumental statues standing in front of the now-destroyed mortuary temple of Amenhotep III, a pharaoh of the 18th Dynasty, on the west bank of the Nile in Thebes. The northern Colossus, a seated figure of Amenhotep III in red quartzite, became a tourist attraction known as the “vocal statue of Memnon.” It started “singing” after an earthquake left cracks in the statue...

Es una reflexión teórica y metodológica sobre el estudio de los grafitos antiguos, particularmente los medievales. Los grafitos pueden ser algo más que una anécdota o una simple curiosidad si se trabajan con las herramientas adecuadas y un punto de vista situado a medio camino entre la historia social, la de las mentalidades y la de la vida cotidiana.
Con ánimo de aportar una pequeña base reflexiva que habrá de irse falsando, pasaré revista a los intentos de definición más interesantes que se han ido haciendo, recogeré las primeras referencias que he podido documentar de grafitos como tal en español, con un rápido repaso al estado de la cuestión hasta 1990. Por último, reflexionaré sobre la función, características y clasificación posible de los grafitos. medievales, con un apunte sobre el grafito que asomará a partir del siglo XVI, que en algunos casos incorpora unas especificidades nuevas (o las retoma de la Antigüedad) que los asimila más a los grafiti contemporáneos y los separa de sus inmediatos predecesores.

In this book, Sarah Levin-Richardson offers the first authoritative examination of Pompeii's purpose-built brothel, the only verifiable brothel from Greco-Roman antiquity. Taking readers on a tour of all of the structure's evidence, including the rarely seen upper floor, she illuminates the subculture housed within its walls. Here, prostitutes could flout the norms of society and proclaim themselves sexual subjects and agents, while servile clients were allowed to act as 'real men'. Prostitutes and clients also exchanged gifts, greetings, jokes, taunts, and praise. Written in a clear, engaging style, and accompanied by an ample illustration program and translations of humorous and haunting graffiti, Levin-Richardson's book will become a new touchstone for those interested in the history of women, slavery, and prostitution in the classical world.

The Middle Kingdom (ca. 2010–1670 BCE) pyramid complex of Senwosret III at Dahshur contained a number of New Kingdom (ca. 1560–1080 BCE) hieratic inscriptions in its different structures. The texts proffer unique evidence for the study of the history of the pyramid complex, as well
as of Egyptian literate culture, especially its relation to the uses of the past, and to sacred and ritual spaces. Relations between visual and written culture can also be observed with the help of graffiti that are placed in close contact with preceding decoration of the funerary complex. The reliminary
report offers a summary of state of research, a description of hitherto uncovered graffiti corpus, and a perspective on interpretation of visitors’ graffiti in the pyramid complex of Senwosret III.

Présentation d'épigraphes très fragmentaires tracés sur les enduits muraux appartenant à deux états du mithraeum de Martigny, dont le dernier, daté de la seconde moitié du IV e siècle. Si l'un est une acclamation fréquente, les autres sont fort difficiles à lire et demeurent obscurs. La comparaison avec les graffitis sur enduit des mithraea de Doura Europos et de Rome offre des indices concordants de localisation, et orientent sur les types de contenus plausibles. Abstract : Presentation of very fragmentary epigraphs drawn on wall painting belonging to two phases of the mithraeum of Martigny, the second phase dating back to the second half of the 4th c. While one of them is a frequent acclamation, the others are extremely hard to read and remain obscure. The comparison with the graffiti on wall painting from the mithraea in Doura-Europos and Rome offers corroborating clues that direct us to plausible types of contents.