Ancient World Seminar: Willemijn Waal (Leiden) ''New perspectives on literacy in Late Bronze Anatolia & the Aegean''

Abstract

When comparing the surviving textual sources from the Late Bronze Age Aegean and Anatolia, one is immediately struck by the great difference between these two corpora. The Hittite tablet collections have yielded large, elaborate tablets containing a wide range of text genres, but hardly any daily economic administration. By contrast, the Linear B documents consist solely of short administrative records. Considering the close proximity of these two areas and the fact that they were in regular contact, this disparity is intriguing and deserves a closer investigation. Does it reflect a true difference in the use of writing or is it merely a perceived difference because we are dealing with incomplete data on both sides? This talk will address the controversial question to what extent perishable materials were used for writing in the Aegean and Anatolia. Based on philological and archaeological evidence, it will be argued that there was a much more prolific literary production than the surviving clay tablets may lead us to believe.

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