Page 66 - Manual of Roman Everyday Writing Volume 2: Writing Equipment

66| MANUAL OF ROMAN EVERYDAY WRITING
Fig. 42: Plate with a graffito letter from Pförring (Germany),
2nd century CE(?). Archäologische Staatssammlung
München, inv. 1993,3507. © Archäologische Staatssammlung
München, Manfred Eberlein, reproduced by permission
from Kommission für Bayerische Landesgeschichte.
People also scribbled onto objects: metal vessels and objects with
graffiti are sometimes found (see e.g. Lieb and Speidel 2003), but
the most frequent objects to carry graffiti are ceramic vessels. Most
graffiti on ceramic vessels were made after firing (post cocturam),
presumably by the users or owners of the vessels. Innumerable
examples are preserved from all over the Roman empire. In addition
to names, marks, drawings/patterns and religious inscriptions,
administrative texts are sometimes found, such as the lists from La
Graufesenque (France) that helped the potters record the vessels in
the kilns (Marichal 1988; Mullen, 2021a). Longer texts on pottery
are otherwise rare in the Roman west, one example is a letter from
Bavaria (Germany, see Thüry 1996).
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While inscriptions generally called ‘graffiti’ on pottery were mostly
made when the object or vessel was intact and functional, the
term ostracon designates a pottery sherd or broken vessel that was
repurposed as writing material. The best-known use of ostraca is in
classical Athens where pieces of pottery with scratched inscriptions
were used as voting ballots. The term is now used more widely and
applied to other geographical areas and periods, but ostraca are more
commonly found in the Graeco-Roman east and in Egypt than in
the northwestern provinces. Texts on Roman ostraca are normally
a bit longer than the common graffiti and they were often written
with ink. They include notes, lists, accounts and letters (Sarri 2018,
77–79). An important site with finds of Latin ostraca is the military
camp in Bu Njem (Libya, Marichal 1992a).
Many handwritten inscriptions are related to trade and the production
and distribution of goods. These include tituli picti/dipinti on amphorae
(e.g. Ehmig 2003, 49–72) and graffiti on wooden barrels (e.g.
Frei-Stolba 2017).
Other materials on which handwriting can be found occasionally
are bone, e.g. graffiti on tokens, or owners’ and producers’ marks
on leather (Baratta 2008).
Fig. 43: Roman leather shoe sole with graffito from
London (UK). RIB 2445.27. Reproduced by permission
from the CSAD and the Haverfield Trust.