Books by Rebecca Benefiel
Inscriptions are a major feature of the Greek and Roman worlds, as inhabitants around the Mediter... more Inscriptions are a major feature of the Greek and Roman worlds, as inhabitants around the Mediterranean chose to commit text to stone and other materials. How did the epigraphic habit vary across time and space? Once adopted, how was the epigraphic habit variously expressed? The chapters of this volume analyze the epigraphic cultures of regions, cities, and communities through both large-scale analyses and detailed studies. From curse tablets in Britain to multilingual communities in Judaea-Palestine, from Greece to Rome to the Black Sea, and across nearly a millennium, the epigraphic outputs of cities and individuals underscore a collective understanding of the value of inscribed texts.
When one thinks of inscriptions produced under the Roman Empire, public inscribed monuments are l... more When one thinks of inscriptions produced under the Roman Empire, public inscribed monuments are likely to come to mind. Hundreds of thousands of such inscriptions are known from across the breadth of the Roman Empire, preserved because they were created of durable material or were reused in subsequent building. This volume looks at another aspect of epigraphic creation – from handwritten messages scratched on wall-plaster to domestic sculptures labeled with texts to displays of official patronage posted in homes: a range of inscriptions appear within the private sphere in the Greco-Roman world. Rarely scrutinized as a discrete epigraphic phenomenon, the incised texts studied in this volume reveal that writing in private spaces was very much a part of the epigraphic culture of the Roman Empire.
Table of Contents
Preface, R. Benefiel and P. Keegan
Chapter 1: Inscriptions in Private Spaces, A. Wallace-Hadrill
Section 1: Graffiti and the Domestic Sphere
Chapter 2: Private graffiti? Scratching the walls of houses at Dura-Europos,
J. Baird
Chapter 3: Inscriptions in a private space: Graffiti in a house in Attica, C. Taylor
Chapter 4: The spatial environment of inscriptions and graffiti in domestic locations: The case of Delos, M. Zarmakoupi
Chapter 5: The culture of writing graffiti within domestic spaces at Pompeii,
R. Benefiel
Section 2: Discourses of Public and Private
Chapter 6: Newly discovered and corrected readings of iscrizioni "privatissime" from the Vesuvian region, A. Varone
Chapter 7: Honos clientium instituit sic colere patronos. A public/private epigraphic type: tabulae of hospitality and patronage, F. Beltrán Lloris
Chapter 8: The significance of sculptures with associated inscriptions in private houses in Ephesos, Pergamon and beyond, E. Rathmayr
Section 3: Place and Space
Chapter 9: Painted and charcoal inscriptions from the territory of Cyrene: evidence from the underworld, A. Cinalli
Chapter 10: Harnessing the sacred: Hidden writing and private spaces in Levantine synagogues, K. Stern
Chapter 11: Graffiti as monumenta and uerba: Marking territories, creating discourses in Roman Pompeii, P. Keegan
Chapter 12: Writing in the Private Sphere: Epilogue, M. Corbier
Inscriptions in the Private Sphere in the Greco-Roman World, 2015
When one thinks of inscriptions produced under the Roman Empire, public inscribed monuments are l... more When one thinks of inscriptions produced under the Roman Empire, public inscribed monuments are likely to come to mind. Prominent dedicatory inscriptions on building architraves, statue bases listing the achievements and cursus honorum of an honorand, funerary monuments recording years lived and relationships left behind – these are the concrete results of an explosive interest in monumentalizing text that is commonly referred to as the epigraphic habit. Hundreds of thousands of such inscriptions are known from across the breadth of the Roman Empire, preserved because they were created of durable material or were reused in subsequent building. This volume (to be published by Brill in 2014) looks at another aspect of epigraphic creation and explores the presence of inscriptions in the private sphere. The types of inscriptions that occurred in private spaces tend to be far more portable, fragile, or ephemeral, and as such they are preserved in a much smaller quantity; in most instances, it is remarkable that they have survived at all. Yet from handwritten messages traced on wall-plaster to letters and symbols scratched on pottery, from domestic sculptures labeled with texts to displays of official patronage posted in homes, a range of inscriptions appeared within the private sphere in the Greco-Roman world. Chance finds, such as the graffiti etched into the floor in a house in classical Attica or a group of inscribed potsherds from a workshop in sixth century Crete, offer glimpses into the type of inscriptions that might be found in the private sphere in the Greek world. Archaeological sites of the Roman Empire present a wider variety, with inscribed domestic sculpture, bronze tablets, and graffiti written on the walls of homes; all together these offer a look into the types of text that might surround an individual at home. The chapters within this volume represent a spectrum of private spaces – from the household latrines that feature graffiti privatissimi to the patronage tablets that straddle the private/public divide, produced in duplicate copies so that one could be displayed in the home of the patronus while the other went on public display in the issuing city. The geographical areas included here as well, from Spain to Italy to Dura Europus, further reveal that writing in private spaces was very much a part of the epigraphic culture of the Roman Empire.
Articles by Rebecca Benefiel
Graffiti Scratched, Scrawled, Sprayed. Towards a Cross-Cultural Understanding, 2023
This chapter discusses how the method for documenting ancient graffiti, including both what to do... more This chapter discusses how the method for documenting ancient graffiti, including both what to document and how, has changed over the centuries. With a focus on the inscriptions of first century Pompeii, we stress that graffiti are epigraphic artefacts, thus requiring both epigraphic and archaeological consideration. We present a historical overview explaining how graffiti have been documented, from early publications in the nineteenth century to technological innovations in the twenty-first. We then discuss the aims, methods and results of the Ancient Graffiti Project, a current project to document graffiti and a publicfacing scholarly resource. Based on a decade of epigraphic research and archaeological fieldwork, AGP offers a digital platform and tools to support a richer understanding of ancient graffiti from the early Roman Empire in their archaeological context.
Ploutarchos, 2003
A navegação consulta e descarregamento dos títulos inseridos nas Bibliotecas Digitais UC Digitali... more A navegação consulta e descarregamento dos títulos inseridos nas Bibliotecas Digitais UC Digitalis, UC Pombalina e UC Impactum, pressupõem a aceitação plena e sem reservas dos Termos e Condições de Uso destas Bibliotecas Digitais, disponíveis em https://digitalis.uc.pt/pt-pt/termos. Conforme exposto nos referidos Termos e Condições de Uso, o descarregamento de títulos de acesso restrito requer uma licença válida de autorização devendo o utilizador aceder ao(s) documento(s) a partir de um endereço de IP da instituição detentora da supramencionada licença. Ao utilizador é apenas permitido o descarregamento para uso pessoal, pelo que o emprego do(s) título(s) descarregado(s) para outro fim, designadamente comercial, carece de autorização do respetivo autor ou editor da obra. Na medida em que todas as obras da UC Digitalis se encontram protegidas pelo Código do Direito de Autor e Direitos Conexos e demais legislação aplicável, toda a cópia, parcial ou total, deste documento, nos casos em que é legalmente admitida, deverá conter ou fazer-se acompanhar por este aviso.
Ear, Nose & Throat Journal, 2021
In _Inscriptions in the Private Sphere in the Greco-Roman World_, edited by R. Benefiel and P. Keegan, Brill, pp. 80-110, 2016
This chapter looks broadly at the presence of graffiti within the city at large, then refocuses t... more This chapter looks broadly at the presence of graffiti within the city at large, then refocuses the field of vision and moves in closer, to the city-block, to the single house, and then to individual clusters of graffiti. First, the big picture. Where and how often do these scratched inscriptions appear? And, how does the habit of writing inside homes compare to writing in more public spaces? An overall snapshot reveals that graffiti were found throughout the ancient city, but the ratio of graffiti in the public vs. the private sphere does not conform to modern expectations. A survey of two individual city-blocks follows and provides a mid-range perspective onto the distribution and density of ancient graffiti. Finally, we move into close-range and examine graffiti in three of the most well-inscribed residences at Pompeii, addressing questions that the topic of graffiti often elicits: How did graffiti impact the interior decoration of the house? And who was involved in writing and reading graffiti? Throughout, the underlying aims of this chapter are to explore the idea of the culture of writing on walls and to understand how graffiti appear within the epigraphic landscape of the ancient city.
Cultic Graffiti in the Late Antique Mediterranean and Beyond, 2021
This chapter opens the volume on _Cultic Graffiti in Late Antiquity and Beyond_, edited by A. Fel... more This chapter opens the volume on _Cultic Graffiti in Late Antiquity and Beyond_, edited by A. Felle and B. Ward-Perkins, a research product of the project: Cult of the Saints in Late Antiquity.
It analyzes the presence of writing in religious spaces of Pompeii - both household shrines (often called lararia) and public neighborhood shrines on street corners (or arae compitales). Household shrines feature graffiti naming divinities and can also serve as a locus for memory. Neighborhood shrines might contain prayers to be uttered aloud, but also host a wide spectrum of writing and even writing in a variety of materials (such as easily erasable charcoal).
Excavations at Zeugma Conducted by Oxford Archaeology, 2013
Oplontis: Villa A ("of Poppaea") at Torre Annunziata, Italy. Volume 2. The Decorations: Painting, Stucco, Pavements, Sculptures, 2019
A Companion to Roman Italy, (ed.) A. Cooley, Wiley-Blackwell, 2016
Regional interaction and local travel in Roman Italy, with a special focus on advertisements for ... more Regional interaction and local travel in Roman Italy, with a special focus on advertisements for gladiatorial games (edicta munerum) and the regional market cycle (indices nundinarii).
American Journal of Archaeology, 2018
This article offers an overview of ancient Greek handwritten wall inscriptions, or graffiti, in t... more This article offers an overview of ancient Greek handwritten wall inscriptions, or graffiti, in the city of Herculaneum and the first contextual analysis of these inscriptions. First, we address how much Greek is found, where it appears, and what was being written in Greek. We then offer a discussion of Greek alphabets and personal names inscribed in Greek, which together account for half of the graffiti in Greek at Herculaneum. Finally, we examine Greek graffiti in context and discuss two locations in Herculaneum where the graffiti have survived and are still visible in situ. By presenting where Greek graffiti appear, what they contain, and how they communicate and interact with other texts, we aim to provide a more comprehensive picture of the distribution and context of Greek in Herculaneum and to offer new insights into the culture of writing in Campania.
Presentation of the efforts that have gone into preparing digital critical editions for 1100+ ent... more Presentation of the efforts that have gone into preparing digital critical editions for 1100+ entries of ancient graffiti from Pompeii and Herculaneum in the Epigraphic Database Roma. With overview of the nature of these ancient graffiti and history of their publication.
Writing Matters. Presenting and Perceiving Monumental Inscriptions in Antiquity and the Middle Ages, Ed. by Berti, Irene / Bolle, Katharina / Opdenhoff, Fanny / Stroth, Fabian, 2017
Comparison of elite houses at Pompeii featuring dense clusters of graffiti with suburban villas i... more Comparison of elite houses at Pompeii featuring dense clusters of graffiti with suburban villas in the Pompeian countryside (Stabiae and Oplontis). Analysis shows that the villas feature greater numbers of figural graffiti and numerical graffiti of a practical nature, along with fewer textual messages. In Pompeii, by contrast, the focus was on writing text.
Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik, 2016
We reexamine the Greek graffito from Villa A at Oplontis (the so-called Villa of Poppaea, 1st c. ... more We reexamine the Greek graffito from Villa A at Oplontis (the so-called Villa of Poppaea, 1st c. CE) which has previously been interpreted as evidence for the cult of Magna Mater. Based on autopsy, we offer a new reading and suggest that the final two words are not ἅγιε λίς but ἀγαθαῖς. The writer has a tendency to not fully complete his letters, especially toward the end of the line when his arm was likely tired. The graffito may include a pun and should instead be understood as: "(A)gathis, you sacrifice favorably with good (fortunes)."
This article describes the goals and activities for the first field season of The Herculaneum Gra... more This article describes the goals and activities for the first field season of The Herculaneum Graffiti Project. Our project focuses on documenting and digitizing to make more broadly accessible the first-century handwritten wall-inscriptions, also called graffiti, in Herculaneum. Following an overview of the presence of ancient graffiti in Herculaneum, this report details the methodology we used to locate and document the inscriptions and the preservation status of ancient graffiti in each insula, or city-block, of the excavations. We further describe the preliminary results of the project's documentation efforts. We are currently studying , processing, and digitizing these inscriptions and contributing them for inclusion in the Epigraphic Database Roma and EAGLE, the Europeana network of Ancient Greek and Latin Epigraphy. We conclude with a brief mention of development of The Ancient Graffiti Project, the digital resource and search engine devoted to ancient handwritten inscriptions.
The Ancient Graffiti Project team is currently studying, re-editing, and creating digital records... more The Ancient Graffiti Project team is currently studying, re-editing, and creating digital records in the Epigraphic Database Roma for a particular group of inscriptions: the thousands of informal, handwritten wall-inscriptions, also known as graffiti, that were scratched into the wall-plaster of Roman towns. Among the many texts written on the walls of Pompeii and Herculaneum, there also appear hand-sketched drawings, or figural graffiti. These figural graffiti have provided several challenges as we digitize them for EDR and as we design a way to search for and retrieve such drawings via the Ancient Graffiti Project search engine. In this article, we discuss the challenges we face and some of the strategies we have adopted in response, with a particular focus on the material from Herculaneum.
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Books by Rebecca Benefiel
Table of Contents
Preface, R. Benefiel and P. Keegan
Chapter 1: Inscriptions in Private Spaces, A. Wallace-Hadrill
Section 1: Graffiti and the Domestic Sphere
Chapter 2: Private graffiti? Scratching the walls of houses at Dura-Europos,
J. Baird
Chapter 3: Inscriptions in a private space: Graffiti in a house in Attica, C. Taylor
Chapter 4: The spatial environment of inscriptions and graffiti in domestic locations: The case of Delos, M. Zarmakoupi
Chapter 5: The culture of writing graffiti within domestic spaces at Pompeii,
R. Benefiel
Section 2: Discourses of Public and Private
Chapter 6: Newly discovered and corrected readings of iscrizioni "privatissime" from the Vesuvian region, A. Varone
Chapter 7: Honos clientium instituit sic colere patronos. A public/private epigraphic type: tabulae of hospitality and patronage, F. Beltrán Lloris
Chapter 8: The significance of sculptures with associated inscriptions in private houses in Ephesos, Pergamon and beyond, E. Rathmayr
Section 3: Place and Space
Chapter 9: Painted and charcoal inscriptions from the territory of Cyrene: evidence from the underworld, A. Cinalli
Chapter 10: Harnessing the sacred: Hidden writing and private spaces in Levantine synagogues, K. Stern
Chapter 11: Graffiti as monumenta and uerba: Marking territories, creating discourses in Roman Pompeii, P. Keegan
Chapter 12: Writing in the Private Sphere: Epilogue, M. Corbier
Articles by Rebecca Benefiel
It analyzes the presence of writing in religious spaces of Pompeii - both household shrines (often called lararia) and public neighborhood shrines on street corners (or arae compitales). Household shrines feature graffiti naming divinities and can also serve as a locus for memory. Neighborhood shrines might contain prayers to be uttered aloud, but also host a wide spectrum of writing and even writing in a variety of materials (such as easily erasable charcoal).
Table of Contents
Preface, R. Benefiel and P. Keegan
Chapter 1: Inscriptions in Private Spaces, A. Wallace-Hadrill
Section 1: Graffiti and the Domestic Sphere
Chapter 2: Private graffiti? Scratching the walls of houses at Dura-Europos,
J. Baird
Chapter 3: Inscriptions in a private space: Graffiti in a house in Attica, C. Taylor
Chapter 4: The spatial environment of inscriptions and graffiti in domestic locations: The case of Delos, M. Zarmakoupi
Chapter 5: The culture of writing graffiti within domestic spaces at Pompeii,
R. Benefiel
Section 2: Discourses of Public and Private
Chapter 6: Newly discovered and corrected readings of iscrizioni "privatissime" from the Vesuvian region, A. Varone
Chapter 7: Honos clientium instituit sic colere patronos. A public/private epigraphic type: tabulae of hospitality and patronage, F. Beltrán Lloris
Chapter 8: The significance of sculptures with associated inscriptions in private houses in Ephesos, Pergamon and beyond, E. Rathmayr
Section 3: Place and Space
Chapter 9: Painted and charcoal inscriptions from the territory of Cyrene: evidence from the underworld, A. Cinalli
Chapter 10: Harnessing the sacred: Hidden writing and private spaces in Levantine synagogues, K. Stern
Chapter 11: Graffiti as monumenta and uerba: Marking territories, creating discourses in Roman Pompeii, P. Keegan
Chapter 12: Writing in the Private Sphere: Epilogue, M. Corbier
It analyzes the presence of writing in religious spaces of Pompeii - both household shrines (often called lararia) and public neighborhood shrines on street corners (or arae compitales). Household shrines feature graffiti naming divinities and can also serve as a locus for memory. Neighborhood shrines might contain prayers to be uttered aloud, but also host a wide spectrum of writing and even writing in a variety of materials (such as easily erasable charcoal).
http://www.forbes.com/sites/drsarahbond/2016/07/04/new-project-uncovers-ancient-games-and-gladiators-through-the-graffiti-of-the-fans/#4618c2773fdf
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/reading-the-writing-on-pompeiis-walls-1969367/
"From Roman walls to Twitter, humans have a long-standing obsession with leaving their mark."
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/03/adrienne-was-here/475719/
More info at: http://www.asgle.org/nacgle-2020-washington-d-c/