- Greek Papyrology, Greek Documentary Papyrology, Papyrology, Documentary Papyrology, Ancient Egypt, Palaeography, and 11 moreLate Antique and Byzantine History, Late Antiquity, Byzantine History, Byzantine Studies, Epistolography, Byzantine epistolography, Graeco-Roman Egypt, Ancient fables, Politeness theory, Linguistic Politeness, and Politeness strategiesedit
- I am a post-doctoral research fellow at Ghent University. I am currently leading the project "An ancient world of man... moreI am a post-doctoral research fellow at Ghent University. I am currently leading the project "An ancient world of manners. A multimodal approach to politeness theory through Greek documentary papyri" (funded by the Special Research Fund - BOF, 2021-2024; more details here: https://research.flw.ugent.be/en/projects/ancient-world-manners-multimodal-approach-politeness-theory-through-greek-documentary).
Despite my exotic name, I am Italian. As most of my compatriot colleagues, I have an international background. I was trained in Classics at the University of Florence, at the École Normale Supérieure and at the École Pratique des Hautes Études (Paris), where I received a Master’s degree and was initiated to Greek Papyrology. I then perfected my papyrological skills in Late Antique documents at the 9th Summer Institute in Papyrology (Princeton University, 2014). I also have an acquaintance with Coptic Language and Papyrology. I obtained my PhD title at the École Pratique des Hautes Études in 2018 with a dissertation on the Greek letters of the archive of Dioscorus of Aphrodite (Title: Communiquer par écrit dans l’Égypte de l’Antiquité tardive: les lettres grecques des archives de Dioscore d’Aphrodité [Égypte, VIe s. apr. J.-C.], supervisor: Jean-Luc Fournet), the richest papyrological archive from Byzantine age. I later joined as a postdoctoral fellow (2018-2021) the ERC project “Everyday writing in Graeco-Roman and Late Antique Egypt (I – VIII AD). A socio-semiotic study of communicative variation", where I investigated the socio-semiotic value of paleography in Greek documentary papyri. I am also participating in the edition of Byzantine papyri from the collections of the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Sorbonne Université, Ghent University, and the British Library.
My research interests include documentary papyrology, Late Antique epistolography, communication practices, politeness in ancient sources, and Greek-Coptic language contacts.edit
This volume contains selected and thoroughly revised versions of papers presented at the international conference “Novel Perspectives on Communication Practices in Antiquity: Towards a Historical Socio-Semiotic Approach.” Held at the... more
This volume contains selected and thoroughly revised versions of papers presented at the international conference “Novel Perspectives on Communication Practices in Antiquity: Towards a Historical Socio-Semiotic Approach.” Held at the cultural center Het Pand in Ghent from October 3 to 5, 2019, the conference occurred in the context of the ERC project “Everyday Writing in Graeco-Roman and Late Antique Egypt: A Socio-Semiotic Study of Communicative Variation”.
Research Interests:
Edition of a Byzantine letter to an exceptor from the Princeton University Papyri collection. The text refers to a sick person, the delivery of some goods, and a request for tunics and knives. The article is open access here:... more
Edition of a Byzantine letter to an exceptor from the Princeton University Papyri collection. The text refers to a sick person, the delivery of some goods, and a request for tunics and knives.
The article is open access here: https://poj.peeters-leuven.be/content.php?url=issue&journal_code=BASP&issue=0&vol=60
The article is open access here: https://poj.peeters-leuven.be/content.php?url=issue&journal_code=BASP&issue=0&vol=60
Research Interests:
This new edition of SB III 7244, the only case of a quadruple private letter in the papyrological documentation, offers a detailed examination of its peculiar layout and attributes the text to the well-known Philosarapis archive. The... more
This new edition of SB III 7244, the only case of a quadruple private letter in the papyrological documentation, offers a detailed examination of its peculiar layout and attributes the text to the well-known Philosarapis archive. The article also provides the first edition of the recto of the papyrus, which contains part of a tax register from the beginning of the III CE concerning the Arsinoite village of Hiera Nesos.
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Edition of P.Ghent inv. 47, a Coptic letter addressed to Dioscorus of Aphrodite.
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In October 2017, the European Research Council awarded a Starting Grant to Klaas Bentein for his project EVWRIT: Everyday writing in Graeco-Roman and Late Antique Egypt: A socio-semiotic study of communicative variation. In what follows,... more
In October 2017, the European Research Council awarded a Starting Grant to Klaas Bentein for his project EVWRIT: Everyday writing in Graeco-Roman and Late Antique Egypt: A socio-semiotic study of communicative variation. In what follows, we briefly outline the corpus, research goals, and methodology of this new project.
Research Interests:
Politeness theory is a well-known linguistic approach that, in recent years, has also been applied to Ancient languages and specific corpora of written artefacts. This theoretical approach is mostly linked to verbal communication and... more
Politeness theory is a well-known linguistic approach that, in recent years, has also been applied to Ancient languages and specific corpora of written artefacts. This theoretical approach is mostly linked to verbal communication and rarely deals with non-verbal elements; visual and graphic aspects are therefore not usually taken into consideration. However, ancient documents such as papyri can also be investigated through their external features, which, along with the text, could convey indirect social messages.
Even if there is almost no mention of any kind of visual and graphic norms in ancient epistolary manuals, papyri show that there might have been some awareness of the visual disposition of a text and of its semiotic possibilities. By taking into consideration late antique letters on papyrus written from subordinates to superiors, this paper aims to investigate whether the register of deference could also be visible on the graphic and visual level, representing an additional way of mitigating the illocutionary act of the request. This examination hopefully forms the basis for a “visual politeness theory” for ancient documents.
Even if there is almost no mention of any kind of visual and graphic norms in ancient epistolary manuals, papyri show that there might have been some awareness of the visual disposition of a text and of its semiotic possibilities. By taking into consideration late antique letters on papyrus written from subordinates to superiors, this paper aims to investigate whether the register of deference could also be visible on the graphic and visual level, representing an additional way of mitigating the illocutionary act of the request. This examination hopefully forms the basis for a “visual politeness theory” for ancient documents.
Research Interests:
This chapter uncovers the oral elements of the ancient epistolary experience by considering the role of late antique letter-carriers, who would animate written letters by reading them aloud and conveying personal messages from sender to... more
This chapter uncovers the oral elements of the ancient epistolary experience by considering the role of late antique letter-carriers, who would animate written letters by reading them aloud and conveying personal messages from sender to recipient. This emphasis on epistolary performances and the personification of the letter-writer by the messenger underscores that written text was not necessarily perceived as the most authoritative medium in ancient record-keeping. Simultaneously, this evidence demonstrates the utility of Ferraris’s notion that social acts can be inscribed as immaterial documents in memory, to be passed on subsequently via the messenger’s oral utterances. Late Antiquity’s “living letters” reflect our still-evolving understanding of the Graeco- Roman epistolary habit.
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Édition de trois ostraca de la collection de la Sorbonne qui illustrent un genre documentaire bien particulier, attesté jusqu’à présent uniquement dans la région thébaine : les tessons de partage d’héritage.
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Edition de deux ostraca grecs de la collection de la Sorbonne concernant une livraison d'huile et une livraison de pain.
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Research Interests:
Recensione a A. Sarri, Material Aspects of Letter Writing in the Graeco-Roman World. 500 BC – AD 300, Berlin/Boston, 2018, apparsa in Gnomon, 92/2, 2020, pp. 180-181.
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Compte rendu de G.R. Ruffini, Life in an Egyptian Village in Late Antiquity. Aphrodito Before and After the Islamic Conquest, Cambridge : Cambridge University Press (2018), paru dans Topoi. Orient - Occident, 22/1, 2018, p. 765-770.
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Compte rendu de M.-H. Marganne et A. Ricciardetto (éd.), En marge du Serment hippocratique. Contrats et serments dans le monde gréco-romain, Liège : Presses Universitaires de Liège, 2017 (= Papyrologica Leodiensia 7), paru dans REA,... more
Compte rendu de M.-H. Marganne et A. Ricciardetto (éd.), En marge du Serment hippocratique. Contrats et serments dans le monde gréco-romain, Liège : Presses Universitaires de Liège, 2017 (= Papyrologica Leodiensia 7), paru dans REA, 119/2, 2017, p. 698-700.
Research Interests:
The dissertation concerns the edition and the study of the Greek letters belonging to the archive of Dioscorus of Aphrodite (Egypt, VI CE), the largest papyrological ensemble of the Byzantine age. Eighty-five documents are analyzed and... more
The dissertation concerns the edition and the study of the Greek letters belonging to the archive of Dioscorus of Aphrodite (Egypt, VI CE), the largest papyrological ensemble of the Byzantine age. Eighty-five documents are analyzed and highlighted by virtue of a new edition - or, when it comes to unpublished texts, of a first edition - followed by a translation and a commentary. Moreover, the study of the corpus, which is scattered across different collections around the world as a consequence of the clandestine discovery of the archive, allowed to join some unpublished fragments to some already known texts and to reconstruct, in this way, a more complete text. The contribution of this documentation is not only philological, but also cultural and historical: by comparing the official correspondence written in Greek with the private correspondence from the same archive, which was preferably written in Coptic, it helps to illuminate the multilingual background; it unfolds the modalities of epistolary exchanges and the written practices of the administration; it reveals the issues encountered by an Upper Egypt village in its daily life; finally, it contributes to the knowledge of the administrative institutions, as well as to the comprehension of the relations between central and local authorities a century before the Arab-Muslim conquest of Egypt.
Research Interests:
The Leiden University Centre for the Arts in Society, Leiden University Library and the Greek department of Ghent University offer a two-day course in Greek palaeography in collaboration with the Research School OIKOS. The course is... more
The Leiden University Centre for the Arts in Society, Leiden University Library and the Greek department of Ghent University offer a two-day course in Greek palaeography in collaboration with the Research School OIKOS. The course is intended for MA, ResMA and doctoral students in the areas of Classics, Ancient History, Ancient Civilizations and Medieval studies with a good command of Greek. It offers a chronological introduction into Greek palaeography from the Hellenistic period until the end of the Middle Ages and is specifically aimed at acquiring practical skills for research involving literary and documentary papyri and/or manuscripts. This course gives the unique opportunity to practice reading on original papyri and manuscripts from the collection of the Leiden Papyrological Institute and the special collections of the Leiden University Library.
Research Interests:
The Greek department of Ghent University offers a two-day course in Greek palaeography in collaboration with the Research School OIKOS. The course is intended for MA, ResMA and doctoral students in the areas of Classics, Ancient History,... more
The Greek department of Ghent University offers a two-day course in Greek palaeography in collaboration with the Research School OIKOS. The course is intended for MA, ResMA and doctoral students in the areas of Classics, Ancient History, Ancient Civilizations and Medieval studies with a good command of Greek. It offers a chronological introduction into Greek palaeography from the Hellenistic period until the end of the Middle Ages and is specifically aimed at acquiring practical skills for research involving literary and documentary papyri and/or manuscripts. We will also provide the unique opportunity to read from original papyri in the papyrus collection of the Ghent University Library and become familiar with the ongoing research projects at Ghent University.
Research Interests:
We are delighted to announce a Call for Papers on non-verbal communication of (im)politeness in ancient sources as part of the 14th Celtic Conference in Classics to be held in Coimbra from 11 to 14 July 2023 (for further information, see... more
We are delighted to announce a Call for Papers on non-verbal communication of (im)politeness in ancient sources as part of the 14th Celtic Conference in Classics to be held in Coimbra from 11 to 14 July 2023 (for further information, see https://cechfluc.wixsite.com/ccclassics2023). Please circulate the text to anyone who might be interested.
Research Interests:
! UPDATE ! Due to the current COVID-19 restrictions, the Crash Course has been postponed to 23-24 May 2022. On 23-24 May 2022, the Greek department of Ghent University offers a two-day course in Greek palaeography in collaboration with... more
! UPDATE ! Due to the current COVID-19 restrictions, the Crash Course has been postponed to 23-24 May 2022.
On 23-24 May 2022, the Greek department of Ghent University offers a two-day course in Greek palaeography in collaboration with the Research School OIKOS. The course is intended for MA, ResMA and doctoral students in the areas of Classics, Ancient History, Ancient Civilizations and Medieval studies with a good command of Greek. It offers an chronological introduction into Greek palaeography from the Hellenistic period until the end of the Middle Ages and is specifically aimed at acquiring practical skills for research involving literary and documentary papyri and/or manuscripts. We will also provide the unique opportunity to read from original papyri in the papyrus collection of the Ghent University Library and become familiar with the ongoing research projects at Ghent University.
On 23-24 May 2022, the Greek department of Ghent University offers a two-day course in Greek palaeography in collaboration with the Research School OIKOS. The course is intended for MA, ResMA and doctoral students in the areas of Classics, Ancient History, Ancient Civilizations and Medieval studies with a good command of Greek. It offers an chronological introduction into Greek palaeography from the Hellenistic period until the end of the Middle Ages and is specifically aimed at acquiring practical skills for research involving literary and documentary papyri and/or manuscripts. We will also provide the unique opportunity to read from original papyri in the papyrus collection of the Ghent University Library and become familiar with the ongoing research projects at Ghent University.
Research Interests:
The EVWRIT opening conference "Novel Perspectives on Communication Practices in Antiquity. Towards a Historical Socio-Semiotic Approach" will be held in Ghent between 3-5 October 2019. Registration is now open through this link:... more
The EVWRIT opening conference "Novel Perspectives on Communication Practices in Antiquity. Towards a Historical Socio-Semiotic Approach" will be held in Ghent between 3-5 October 2019.
Registration is now open through this link:
https://www.novelperspectives.ugent.be/registration/
Registration is now open through this link:
https://www.novelperspectives.ugent.be/registration/
Research Interests:
We are pleased to announce the launch of the Ghent Centre for Late Antiquity, which will take place on Tuesday, October 4, 2022, at Ghent University. The Ghent Centre for Late Antiquity (GCLA - https://www.gcla.ugent.be/) is an... more
We are pleased to announce the launch of the Ghent Centre for Late Antiquity, which will take place on Tuesday, October 4, 2022, at Ghent University.
The Ghent Centre for Late Antiquity (GCLA - https://www.gcla.ugent.be/) is an interdisciplinary research centre that brings together the rich and variegated expertise on Late Antiquity present at Ghent University.
Some fifty researchers from the departments of archaeology, history, linguistics and literature collaborate within the GCLA. Their research, which is supported by the European Research Council (ERC), the Research Foundation – Flanders (FWO) and the UGent Special Research Fund (BOF), is characterized by close working with sources, material culture and languages, and covers Late Antiquity from North-Western Europe to Egypt and the Caucasus.
The GCLA offers a gateway for international scholars, senior as well as junior ones, wishing to collaborate or come to Ghent to work on Late Antiquity.
Attendance is free but registration is mandatory (before 27th September) through https://eventmanager.ugent.be/GCLA.
The entire event can also be followed online through MS Teams (link on the program).
The Ghent Centre for Late Antiquity (GCLA - https://www.gcla.ugent.be/) is an interdisciplinary research centre that brings together the rich and variegated expertise on Late Antiquity present at Ghent University.
Some fifty researchers from the departments of archaeology, history, linguistics and literature collaborate within the GCLA. Their research, which is supported by the European Research Council (ERC), the Research Foundation – Flanders (FWO) and the UGent Special Research Fund (BOF), is characterized by close working with sources, material culture and languages, and covers Late Antiquity from North-Western Europe to Egypt and the Caucasus.
The GCLA offers a gateway for international scholars, senior as well as junior ones, wishing to collaborate or come to Ghent to work on Late Antiquity.
Attendance is free but registration is mandatory (before 27th September) through https://eventmanager.ugent.be/GCLA.
The entire event can also be followed online through MS Teams (link on the program).
Program of the second annual series of lectures organized by the ERC-2017-AdG project NOTAE (2021).
Research Interests:
Yasmine Amory
Più di un'arte, più di un'intuizione. Una proposta tipologica per l'analisi paleografica dei papiri documentari greci.
Più di un'arte, più di un'intuizione. Una proposta tipologica per l'analisi paleografica dei papiri documentari greci.
Research Interests:
Dans l’Égypte du sixième siècle après J.-C., la cohabitation des deux langues en usage est désormais établie : le grec continue à l’emporter pour les usages officiels, alors que le copte semble réservé aux échanges privés et à la... more
Dans l’Égypte du sixième siècle après J.-C., la cohabitation des deux langues en usage est désormais établie : le grec continue à l’emporter pour les usages officiels, alors que le copte semble réservé aux échanges privés et à la production de textes chrétiens. Cette répartition typologique se reflète également dans le style graphique, puisque le copte, de formation assez récente, a dû se conformer à l’écriture en onciale non ligaturée des textes littéraires grecs, tandis que le grec est à cette époque généralement rédigé dans une cursive penchée quadrilinéaire. Les deux langues seraient donc sujettes, du point de vue graphique, à des conventions formelles précises, phénomène qui a récemment été désigné par l’expression « graphic bilingualism ». Pourtant, un petit dossier épistolaire bilingue
appartenant aux archives de Dioscore d’Aphrodité, le plus grand ensemble papyrologique d’époque byzantine, invite à nuancer cette affirmation. L’expéditeur du dossier, bien qu’il se distingue par sa maîtrise stylistique et linguistique dans les deux langues, se trahit parfois en adaptant dans une langue des expressions courantes dans l’autre. Ce glissement se traduit aussi graphiquement, dans la mesure où le scribe emploie deux mains assez similaires. Ce dossier invite alors à réfléchir tant sur les interférences entre les écritures que sur l’éducation de ce scribe, notamment par la comparaison avec le cas d’un autre scribe bilingue bien connu, Dioscore d’Aphrodité lui-même.
appartenant aux archives de Dioscore d’Aphrodité, le plus grand ensemble papyrologique d’époque byzantine, invite à nuancer cette affirmation. L’expéditeur du dossier, bien qu’il se distingue par sa maîtrise stylistique et linguistique dans les deux langues, se trahit parfois en adaptant dans une langue des expressions courantes dans l’autre. Ce glissement se traduit aussi graphiquement, dans la mesure où le scribe emploie deux mains assez similaires. Ce dossier invite alors à réfléchir tant sur les interférences entre les écritures que sur l’éducation de ce scribe, notamment par la comparaison avec le cas d’un autre scribe bilingue bien connu, Dioscore d’Aphrodité lui-même.
Research Interests:
Journée d'étude des doctorants de l'École Nationale des Chartes et de l'École Pratique des Hautes Études " Restauration et remploi ", 24 mai 2017, Paris.
Research Interests:
The usual approach to a document and its analysis focus on the written status, contents and material features. However, the study of the letter requests an additional procedure, since we must take into account that half of the... more
The usual approach to a document and its analysis focus on the written status, contents and material features. However, the study of the letter requests an additional procedure, since we must take into account that half of the correspondence is missing. But is this the only missing element? If the cursus publicus guaranteed the carriage of government messages, the average citizen needed to entrust his message to someone who happened to be going in the right direction. The letter carrier, when trusted, was often charged with some oral informations, now necessarily gone. Evidences of this habit can be found in papyri, as in epistolary collections. In the latter, the messenger is occasionally designated by the expression ἔμψυχος ἐπιστολή, “animated letter”, in opposition to the ἄψυχος ἐπιστολή, “inanimate letter”. Therefore, the person in charge to transmit the main message gradually takes over the informative use of the written letter.
This paper represents an attempt to question the simple qualification of the letter as a material document and to illustrate the further employ of the private literary letter in Late Antiquity, at a time when contemporary rhetoric and art of epistolography considerably influenced it.
This paper represents an attempt to question the simple qualification of the letter as a material document and to illustrate the further employ of the private literary letter in Late Antiquity, at a time when contemporary rhetoric and art of epistolography considerably influenced it.
Research Interests:
Environ quatre-vingt documents, dont la plupart sont des lettres d'ordre administratif, comportent un π isolé en position centrale au début du texte. Les éditeurs résolvent désormais l'abréviation par π(αρά), bien que les raisons de... more
Environ quatre-vingt documents, dont la plupart sont des lettres d'ordre administratif, comportent un π isolé en position centrale au début du texte. Les éditeurs résolvent désormais l'abréviation par π(αρά), bien que les raisons de la présence de la seule préposition demeurent encore inconnues. D'autres hypothèses ont été avancées au cours de ces dernières années, et on a parfois évoqué un rapprochement avec le prescrit des ordres d'arrêt ou de payement (voir le commentaire à P.Oxy. XVI 1831, 1 et BGU XVII, p. XXXVII). Certains de ces documents présentent en effet le nom de l'émetteur au génitif centré sur la première ligne et précédé de παρά, souvent abrégé. Une analyse plus approfondie révèle que cette formulation est adoptée à partir du troisième siècle après J.-C., de préférence par l'administration civile et les grands domaines agricoles.
Englober les ordres et les lettres administratives dans la catégorie plus générale de «correspondance officielle», où une instance supérieure s'adresse à un subordonné, permet de réévaluer l'insolite incipit épistolaire et, le cas échéant, d'interpréter certains changements structurels de la lettre à l'époque byzantine.
Englober les ordres et les lettres administratives dans la catégorie plus générale de «correspondance officielle», où une instance supérieure s'adresse à un subordonné, permet de réévaluer l'insolite incipit épistolaire et, le cas échéant, d'interpréter certains changements structurels de la lettre à l'époque byzantine.
Research Interests:
This is the first volume of the Book Series "Graphic Symbols, Written Words" directed by Antonella Ghignoli at Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, Rome. The book includes essays by Tessa Canella, Agostino Soldati, Yasmine Amory, Sophie... more
This is the first volume of the Book Series "Graphic Symbols, Written Words" directed by Antonella Ghignoli at Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, Rome.
The book includes essays by Tessa Canella, Agostino Soldati, Yasmine Amory, Sophie Kovarik, Dario Internullo, Martin Hellmann.
The book is available for download in Open Access at
<https://www.storiaeletteratura.it/catalogo/segni-sogni-materie-e-scrittura-dallegitto-tardoantico-alleuropa-carolingia/16568>
The book includes essays by Tessa Canella, Agostino Soldati, Yasmine Amory, Sophie Kovarik, Dario Internullo, Martin Hellmann.
The book is available for download in Open Access at
<https://www.storiaeletteratura.it/catalogo/segni-sogni-materie-e-scrittura-dallegitto-tardoantico-alleuropa-carolingia/16568>