Public Records and Archives in Classical Athens (Studies in the History of Greece and Rome) (Hardcover)

by James P. Sickinger (Author) "The origins of public record keeping at Athens are obscure..." (more)
Key Phrases: kata prytaneian, didascalic records, bouleutic calendar, Mother of the Gods, City Dionysia, Peloponnesian War (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review
This important study offers a major challenge to prevailing assumptions about ancient bureaucracy and literacy.

Religious Studies Review

An excellent work of scholarship on a very timely subject written from a completely original point of view.

Ronald S. Stroud, American School of Classical Studies

Product Description
In this book, James Sickinger explores the use and preservation of public records in the ancient Athenian democracy of the archaic and classical periods.

Athenian public records are most familiar from the survival of inscribed stelai, slabs of marble on which were published decrees, treaties, financial accounts, and other state documents. Working largely from evidence supplied by such inscriptions, Sickinger demonstrates that their texts actually represented only a small part of Athenian record keeping. More numerous and more widely used, he says, were archival texts written on wooden tablets or papyri that were made, and often kept for extended periods of time, by Athenian officials.

Beginning with the legislation of Drakon in the seventh century B.C., Sickinger traces the growing use of written records by the Athenian state over the next three centuries, concluding with an examination of the Metroon, the state archive of Athens, during the fourth century. Challenging assumptions about ancient Athenian literacy, democracy, and society, Sickinger argues that the practical use and preservation of laws, decrees, and other state documents were hallmarks of Athenian public life from the earliest times.

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• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press (May 12, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0807824690
• ISBN-13: 978-0807824696
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
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• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,611,781 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)
  
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• Also Available in: Paperback  |  |  All Editions