UPThèses

English

Hermeneutics and Semiotics in Archaeology : a new cultural interpretation of ceramics in Greco-Roman Egypt

This doctoral dissertation focuses on the study of the pottery sherds that were used as writing surfaces for painted texts in Greco-Roman Egypt, called ostraka. Two groups of ostraka found in two modern excavations, Dime es-Seba/Soknopaiou Nesos (Fayyum), and Amheida/Trimithis (Dakhla Oasis) are the main subjects of the investigation. The two archaeological sites are under excavation by, respectively, the Centro di Studi Papirologici dell’Università del Salento-Lecce (2003-2012), and New York University-ISAW (2004-2013). Both settlements are located in the Western Desert of Egypt, in areas far from the Nile Valley and the main centers of power. The ostraka, which are re-used broken fragments of ceramic vessels with texts in Greek and Demotic, have been in the past seldom considered as archaeological objects because of the predominant importance of their texts. The material part of the ostraka being made from pottery vessels generally unrefined and of poor quality, have deterred most scholars from studying them accurately. Moreover, ceramological studies in Egypt and the interest towards the economy of the pottery manufacture and re-use are very recent. Finally, it is commonly believed that scribes collected the ceramic fragments to be used as ostraka randomly from open-air dumps. This research proved that this concept has to be considered as a wrong assumption, at least for the two groups of ostraka examined. On the contrary, it is very clear that the ancient scribes made a proper selection of the sherds they needed for specific purposes and that in some cases they reworked the sherds. It seems clear that nothing was left to the chance: the content of the texts and their use is strictly related to the kind of potsherds used to hold it. Additionally, the study of the ceramic types used in both settlements, analyzed as signifiers of the cultural environments for which they were produced, has shed light to the complex society of Egypt between the third century BCE and the fourth century CE.

Keywords : Fayyum, Dakhla, ostrakon, ceramic, re-used fragments, Egypt, greco-roman, archaeological excavation.

Italiano

Ermeneutica e semiotica in archeologia : per una nuova interpretazione culturale della ceramica vascolare nell’Egitto greco-romano.