Ancient Graffiti in Context

Jennifer Baird, Claire Taylor, Jennifer Baird, Claire Taylor

• Éditeur: Routledge
• Année: 2010
• ISBN:
  9781136894633
• Édition: 1
• Sujet: History
• Sous-sujet: Ancient History

Graffiti are ubiquitous within the ancient world, but remain underexploited as a form of archaeological or historical evidence. They include a great variety of texts and images written or drawn inside and outside buildings, in public and private places, on monuments in the city, on objects used in daily life, and on mountains in the countryside. In each case they can be seen as actively engaging with their environment in a variety of ways. Ancient Graffiti in Context interrogates this cultural phenomenon and by doing so, brings it into the mainstream of ancient history and archaeology. Focusing on different approaches to and interpretations of graffiti from a variety of sites and chronological contexts, Baird and Taylor pose a series of questions not previously asked of this evidence, such as: What are graffiti, and how can we interpret them? In what ways, and with whom, do graffiti communicate? To what extent do graffiti represent or subvert the cultural values of the society in which they occur? By comparing themes across time and space, and viewing graffiti in context, this book provides a series of interpretative strategies for scholars and students of the ancient world. As such it will be essential reading for Classical archaeologists and historians alike.

1
Ancient Graffiti in Context

Introduction

J.A. Baird and Claire Taylor

I’m amazed, O wall, that you have not fallen in ruins, you who support the tediousness of so many writers.

Pompeian graffito (CIL 4.1904)¹

Graffiti have long appealed to those interested in the ancient world. In early excavations of archaeological sites the words written on walls were instantly recognisable as being comparable to graffiti in the contemporary world—a way in which ancient society was brought to life. Writing which appeared on objects was thought to be equally connective to the past, illuminating aspects of life which were, again, rather familiar (for example, ownership marks on pots). Indeed, the practice of writing on walls goes back to some of the earliest visual forms known. In prehistoric cave paintings, such as the famed Palaeolithic images at Lascaux, marks on the walls were taken to represent the births of both art and homo sapiens, as evidence for communication, visual representation, and beauty in early human cultures (Smith 2004). This apparent familiarity has meant that modern graffiti has long been linked to its prehistoric antecedents (Brassaï [1964] 2002: 139); Banksy and rock art have been understood as representing aspects of the same phenomenon, and modern graffiti sometimes explicitly references ancient precedents (Frederick 2009).

Ancient graffiti of the Greek and Roman worlds, too, has frequently been compared with modern examples: it has been assumed that such marks on modern and ancient walls alike, in their informality and immediacy, have something in common. Popular conceptions of the graffiti we see around us in the urban environment seep into interpretations of the markings of the past. Moreover, the attitudes of archaeologists and historians towards such writing are as deeply embedded in their own disciplines as they are in the popular consciousness: ancient examples are sometimes given as evidence of the ‘less educated’, the subversive, or the ‘vulgar’ in ancient societies without much interrogation of this idea (Cavallo 1983: 174–5; Wallace 2005: xxiv).

Historiographically, the Pompeian scholarship on graffiti has shaped how this evidence has been viewed within the disciplines of history and archaeology overall. The 1856 publication of Graffiti of Pompeii elicited much excitement amongst scholars (Garrucci 1856), and the value of such evidence was realised early on; by 1868 it had already been remarked that ‘[b]esides the insight which the dipinti and graffiti of Pompeii give us into the social, political, and domestic life of a Roman provincial town of the first century, they are also valuable as specimens of ancient patois’ (Evans 1868: 438–9). In Mau’s study of ‘life and art’ in Pompeii, a chapter was devoted to graffiti, as ‘the largest division of the Pompeian inscriptions’, but these were presented with the disappointment that ‘[t]he people with whom we should most eagerly desire to come into direct contact, the cultivated men and women of the ancient city, were not accustomed to scratch their names upon stucco or to confide their reflections and experiences to the surface of a wall’ (Mau 1899: 481–2). Reviewers of Tanzer’s The Common People of Pompeii (1939), which was self-consciously styled as a study of the graffiti, were united in their view that the material ‘links the life of today with that of Pompeii’ (Gunmere 1940), ‘bring[s] one close to ancient life’ (Mattingly 1940), and provides ‘a picture of daily life among everyday people’ (Gardner Moore 1941). We can therefore see that familiar truisms about graffiti have appeared by the late-nineteenth century and are reinforced throughout the first half of the twentieth: they allow an unmediated contact with the writer, they were made by the lower classes, and they were a subcategory of ancient inscriptions.

Recent work however suggests that this was not the case. Indeed, the Pompeian material itself is not only rather heterogeneous, but also rather unusual in comparison with other cities where lots of graffiti are found; an observation which is thrown into relief in this volume by discussion of other sites within the ancient world. In Pompeii writing is found on walls in public spaces (Chiavia 2002), inside houses (Benefiel 2010), as well as in and around workspaces (bars, brothels etc; see McGinn 2002; Varone 2002: 143–54). Aside from the topographical variety, there is also a wide range of types of writing: from metrical and ‘literary’ graffiti (Cugusi 1985a, 2008; Kruschwitz 2008; Milnor 2009) to political ‘posters’ (Mouritsen 1988), adverts for sporting events (Funari and Garrafoni 2009) to simple personal names, greetings and ‘erotic’ texts (Varone 2002; Solin 2008), as well as a large corpus of pictorial examples (human figures, animals, ships as well as more abstract pictures are common: Funari 1993; Langner 2001).² Investigation of both linguistic and iconographical aspects of Pompeian graffiti in particular show that blanket assumptions that they were made by the ‘lowest social stratum’ are untenable not least because of the variety of material found (Solin 1973; Funari 1993; Hernández Pérez 2002–2003; Kruschwitz and Halla-aho 2007).

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the study of ancient graffiti has been dominated by the city of Pompeii by virtue of the sheer number of surviving, recorded, examples found at the site. Pompeii features in a number of chapters in this volume too, for much the same reasons, but we hope that bringing together other case studies from across the Greek and Roman worlds will begin to elucidate the diversity of the many graffiti practices as well as emphasising the importance of contextualisation (indeed the Pompeian examples are chosen because they highlight different ways in which graffiti might be both ‘read’ and used by scholars). For instance, this volume shows that many graffiti not only communicate a message to a reader, but also can be viewed as being part of a dialogue with one another. Graffiti may also mark time and space, and are one of the few forms of writing from the ancient world which preserve the material context of their production. Contextualising graffiti in this way highlights that, as a form of evidence, they have much to contribute to existing scholarly debates, for example those concerning literacy, orality, the relationship between text and image, the display of emotions, performance and the material construction of memory.

ANCIENT GRAFFITI? THE PROBLEM OF DEFINITION

The English word graffiti comes from the Italian verb to scratch, and in its simplest sense, graffiti are simply markings scratched onto a surface, whether of text or pictures. But graffiti themselves can be made by a number of means besides scratching: these include inscribing, using charcoal, ink, or paint (painted marks are usually termed dipinti and sometimes considered as a category of graffiti; see Kruschwitz 2010: 157, with n. 4).³ Apart from shining a light on the tools used, the way in which a mark is produced—whether with chisel, charcoal, paintbrush, or other implement—is not the singular means, nor necessarily the most useful criterion, with which to define this practice. Indeed, such an emphasis obscures not only other aspects of materiality but also more fruitful investigations into the spaces in which such markings inhabit, their location in relation to one another, as well as (ancient and modern) attitudes towards them.

If we were to take our lead from studies of contemporary graffiti, it might be easy to view ancient graffiti as an illicit urban phenomenon which defaces (other people’s) property (see for example Macdonald 2002).⁴ Much graffiti in the ancient world did occur within the ‘urban’ environment (see examples at Pompeii, Dura-Europos, Aphrodisias or Ephesos), but not exclusively so: graffiti also appear in other places (notably sanctuary sites: Delos, Aliki, El Kanais, Abydos), and in some cases, at sites which appear decidedly out-of-the-way (e.g. Hymettos in Attica).⁵ Although visibility is, in general terms, an important factor for both the production and reception of the marks, some graffiti appear in places where visibility is restricted (such as the possible children’s graffiti discussed here by Huntley, or the marks on a vessel perhaps destined for the grave examined by Volioti).

Modern definitions of graffiti routinely include adjectives such as ‘illicit’, ‘informal’, or ‘unauthorised’, but as is explored here, the notion of graffiti as being inherently subversive is very much a modern predilection. Zadorojnyi, for example, considers the complexities of graffiti as symbols of political dissent within elite Greco-Roman literary discourse. Baird shows that a number of the graffiti in Dura can be associated with Roman military personnel, that is, the authorities of the city.

Similarly, viewing ancient graffiti as acts of defacement is as likely to mislead as to illuminate. Consider, for example, the marks on the columns of the quadriporticus in the market of Caesar and Augustus in Athens. Described in the scholarship as ‘vandalism’ (Hoff 2006: 182), these include merchants’ permanent stalls (sometimes called ‘topoi inscriptions’), as well as what seems to be a magical spell.⁶ But the appearance of merchants’ signs in a marketplace is a far from illegitimate act and the marking of a supposedly secret religious ritual in a high profile public place is less an act of vandalism of property than it is a deliberate and conspicuous threat to the persons targeted by the magic; it is simply unlikely the ancient users of the marketplace would have agreed with this classification.

A similar example can be noted in Aphrodisias (and discussed here by Chaniotis, page 202): acclamations praising benefactors, the emperor, and the senate written on the columns of porticos in the South Agora do not imply the wanton destruction of public buildings, but rather the acceptance of authority. Interpreting ancient writing like this as defacement, therefore, perhaps reveals more about modern expectations about where writing should (or should not) be found than it does about the ancient world. Here we can see clearly the limitations of using modern analogies to explain graffiti practices because they implicitly demonise the activity. Graffiti which appears on/in houses is a case in point; writing on interior walls in particular does not appear to be unusual or undesirable in the ancient world (as is demonstrated by Benefiel, Baird and Huntley in this volume), but it is socially unacceptable for modern audiences (Fleming 2001: 30). Although this is further complicated by other types of texts which appear on the interior walls of houses, such as those which form part of decorative schemes (Bergmann 2007), the variety of writing and its frequency of its appearance in the ancient world suggests that we need to reassess our notions of the social significance of this activity which move away from modern expectations about the ‘proper’ place for writing. (Further examples of writing inside houses can be seen at Delos: Severyns 1927; Zeugma: Barbet 2005; Ephesos: Taeuber 2005; or Trimithis in Egypt: Cribiore et al. 2008). The same could be said of writing which appears in other spaces.

Graffiti have been implicitly defined by scholars of the Greek and Roman world as texts or images which appear in unexpected places, where they do not obviously belong (for further discussion see Chaniotis, pages 193–6, Baird, pages 65–6). So, a trademark scratched onto a pot after firing is not part of the original decoration and therefore termed ‘graffiti’ (Johnston 1979: 5),⁷ an abecedarium written on an ostrakon transforms a pottery fragment into a dedication, and a text describing sexual conquests on a wall in Pompeii gives a flavour of erotic life in the ancient world. However, this definition can only take us so far, and we must question whether these marks are in fact unexpected and why we consider them so. Seen within the context of mercantile activity, trademarks give essential information about the contents of the vessel or the supplier; it is therefore crucial for the merchant and clearly expected within this sphere of activity. Likewise, the dedication of pieces of writing in sanctuaries is not a marginal activity and is hardly, therefore, unexpected (see, for example, the archaic sanctuaries of Apollo Daphnephoros in Eretria: Kenzelmann Pfyffer et al. 2005, or Zeus Hymettos in Attica: Langdon 1976). Indeed, our epigraphic knowledge would be severely reduced if we did not have such dedications. Writing sexual texts and depicting erotic scenes are of course entirely appropriate activity within a brothel, and this is where graffiti of this type are commonly found (see, for example, the ‘lupanare’ at Pompeii [VII.12.18–20]: PPM 7.520–39).

Ancient graffiti, then, are not necessarily defined only by their content or subject, nor by the surface onto which they are made, nor by the techniques with which they are produced. As with so many categories of evidence used by scholars, graffiti as a discrete class is largely a modern invention and in some contexts almost can be seen as ‘the Other’ against which the formality of parchments, papyri and lapidary inscriptions are held up. This is reflected in the ways in which scholars have historically dealt with this material, and the papers of Baird, Mairs and Taylor in this volume deal with this question further. Zadorojnyi, on the other hand, discusses some of the ambiguities of ‘graffiti’ which appear within the ancient literary tradition and demonstrates that the Greco-Roman literary elite (in a similar vein, but for different reasons) sometimes viewed spontaneous writing as ‘the Other’.

The choice to treat graffiti as a distinct category does not, it must be stressed, arise from ancient categories, but ironically there are now perhaps cogent reasons for doing so. The perceived ephemeral, informal and unsophisticated character of graffiti has meant that they have not received sufficient attention relative to other parts of the epigraphic corpus, yet they are abundant, appear in many different geographical and chronological contexts, and can contribute to a number of important debates. And while some graffiti from certain sites throughout the ancient world have, in fact, been relatively well-published, they have rarely been integrated into either archaeological or historical accounts in sophisticated, or easily accessible, ways.

Definitions and terminology may seem trivial, but they get to the root of some of the key problems which affect the study of ancient graffiti. The classification of extant graffiti within the epigraphic corpora has also informed their subsequent use by scholars: as noted by Kruschwitz (2005), the Pompeian graffiti of CIL appear in a separate volume because they are examples of cursive writing on a variety of materials (walls, wax tablets, pottery: see table 9.1, page 167). The corpus is arranged according to whether the marks were painted or scratched before being organised topographically, which makes it difficult to get a sense of how differently produced marks are related to one another spatially (for further discussion of the historic problems relating to the organisation of CIL see Franklin 1991: 78–9). Furthermore, the lapidary inscriptions from the site are collected in a different volume which encourages further separation of this material from other forms of publically-visible writing.

There are similar problems with graffiti from the Greek world. IG I³ (fifth-century Athenian inscriptions) makes implicit assumptions about authorship by classifying rupestral graffiti (much, though not all, of it sexual) as pueri (IG I³ 1399–1406), even though similar writing appears on pottery in symposium contexts and are therefore produced and read under very different circumstances, and such insults are common in Aristophanes. Indeed, editorial constraints prevent accompanying pictures being printed, at least in the Athens volume; here the text is the focus, although admittedly this is not the case for all regions within the Greek...

Table des matières

• Routledge Studies in Ancient History
• Contents
• Tables
• Figures
• Abbreviations
• Preface
• 1 Ancient Graffiti in Context
• 2 Dialogues of Graffiti in the House of the Four Styles at Pompeii (Casa Dei Quattro Stili, I.8.17, 11)*
• 3 The Graffiti of Dura-Europos
• 4 Identifying Children’s Graffiti in Roman Campania
• 5 Graffiti and the Epigraphic Habit
• 6 Transcripts of Dissent?
• 7 The Materiality of Graffiti
• 8 Egyptian ‘Inscriptions’ and Greek ‘Graffiti’ at El Kanais in the Egyptian Eastern Desert
• 9 Blogging Rome
• 10 Graffiti in Aphrodisias
• Contributors
• Bibliography
• Index