Communication and materiality : : written and unwritten communication in pre-modern societies / / edited by Susanne Enderwitz and Rebecca Sauer.

• Superior document: Materiale Textkulturen, Band 8
• Funder: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft
• Author: Sauer, Rebecca; Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft
• TeilnehmendeR: Enderwitz, Susanne,; Sauer, Rebecca,
• Place / Publishing House: Berlin, [Gemany] ;, Boston, [Massachusetts] : : De Gruyter,, 2015.; ©2015
• Year of Publication: 2015
• Language: English
• Series: Materiale Textkulturen ; Band 8.
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (138 pages) :; digital, PDF file(s).
• Notes: Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

This volume reconsiders the question of literacy and communication in pre-modern societies from an interdisciplinary perspective. Methodologically, its authors rely on the assumption that not only the content of a specific message, but also its material form and outlook effect the way in which textual artefacts are understood and interpreted by their individual readers or beholders. Furthermore, writers consciously and at times unconsciously design texts by applying different writing surfaces, writing implements or layouts. The volume includes examples from the Ancient Orient, the antique Mediterranean, medieval Europe and the Middle East to elucidate how communication between rulers and subordinates was conceptualized in largely illiterate pre-modern societies with regard to the materiality, performance and presence of the written word.

Table of Contents

Front matter -- Contents -- Introduction: Communication and Materiality - Communicative Strategies of Ruling Elites from 3000 BCE through 1500 CE -- Bibliography -- Spreading the Royal Word: The (Im)Materiality of Communication in Early Mesopotamia / Tsouparopoulou, Christina -- Linear B Administration: The Communicative Aspects of Written Media and the Organisation of the Mycenaean Bureaucracy / Karagianni, Angeliki -- Materiality and Reality of the Communication of Divine Will in the Sargonid Period / Wilhelmi, Lisa -- utā pavastāyā utā carmā grftam āha-Written on Clay and Parchment: Old Persian Writing and Allography in Iranian / Fear, Douglas -- Charters, Pitchforks, and Green Seals / Mauntel, Christoph -- The Textile Performance of the Written Word: Islamic Robes of Honour (khilaʿ) / Sauer, Rebecca -- Postscript / Sauer, Rebecca -- Notes on Contributors