Ancient Archives and Archival Traditions

An interdisciplinary study that offers a systematic approach to ancient archival documents from the Near East, the Mycenean world, and classical Greece. This book addresses questions of formal aspects of creating, writing, and storing ancient documents, and how concepts of record-keeping were adapted by different societies in the ancient world. Our oldest archival records originate from the Near East. Systems of archival record-keeping developed over several millennia in Mesopotamia before spreading to Egypt, the Mycenean world, and the Persian empire, and continuing through the Hellenistic and Seleucid periods. Yet we know little about the way archival practices were established, transmitted, modified, and adapted by other civilizations. This interdisciplinary volume offers a systematic approach to archival documents and to the societies which created them, addressing questions of formal aspects of creating, writing, and storing ancient documents, and showing how archival systems were copied and adapted across a wide geographical area and an extensive period of time.