Writing Matters - Italy in the First Millennium BCE

The epigraphy of 1st-millennium-BC Italy has been studied for many years, but these studies have largely concentrated on the languages encoded in the inscriptions and their semantic meanings. This book takes a more holistic approach that looks not only at content, but also the archaeological contexts of the inscriptions and the materiality of their ''supports'': the artefacts and monuments on which the inscriptions occur. The first writing in Italy was not a local invention, but was introduced by the Phoenicians and Greeks in the 9th-8th centuries BC. It was taken up by number of indigenous communities over the subsequent centuries to write their own languages, before these were eventually submerged by the spread of Latin. In a series of theoretical, methodological and interpretative essays, Ruth Whitehouse explores what can be learned about how writing was used by these communities and what it meant to them. The bodies of data considered relate to Venetic and Raetic (the northeast), Lepontic (the northwest), Messapic (the southeast) and Etruscan (west central Italy, extending also into Campania in the south and the Po plain in the north). While not a comprehensive survey, there are enough different groups to allow a comparative approach to be adopted. Analysis of the datasets is able to reveal the similarities and differences between them, as well as identify features that were widespread in 1st-millennium-BC Italy and others that were more idiosyncratic and specific to particular cultural groups.>

About the author

Ruth Whitehouse is Emeritus Professor of Archaeology at the UCL Institute of Archaeology, University College London, UK.

Product details

• Authors: Ruth Whitehouse
• Assisted by: Ruth Whitehouse (Editor)
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 01.06.2024
• EAN: 9781350412514
• ISBN: 978-1-350-41251-4
• No. of pages: 296
• Dimensions: 158 mm x 236 mm x 20 mm
• Series: UCL World Archaeology Series; Ucl World Archaeology
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > History > Pre and early history; HISTORY / Ancient / General, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Archaeology, HISTORY / Europe / Italy, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Anthropology / Cultural & Social, LANGUAGE ARTS & DISCIPLINES / Alphabets & Writing Systems, Italy, Social & cultural anthropology, ethnography, Social and cultural anthropology, Ancient History, Archaeology by period / region, Ancient history: to c 500 CE, Writing systems, alphabets, c 1000 BCE to start of CE period, Palaeography (History Of Writing), BCE to c 500 CE, Palaeography