QUAESTIO: How do we know what we know about ancient Pompeii and the ancient Romans?

NUNC AGENDA: Answer these questions in your notebooks:

1.What objects, materials, and other stuff can we study to learn about ancient Romans?

2. What do you think the phrase “material culture” means?

Things to help us understand the Ancient Romans

What do you think the difference is between “primary” and “secondary” materials?

Primary: things from ancient times

Secondary: things written recently ABOUT ancient times

Primary Stuff

What are some “Primary” sources

Primary source materialSource What can it tell us?

Physical Remains

Bones (human / animal)

buildings, parts of buildings, walls, roads, etc

Primary source materialSource What can it tell us?

Physical Remains

Bones (human / animal)

buildings, parts of buildings, walls, roads, etc

Tools, personal items, coins

Athletic equipment: jumping weights, javelin point, discus,

strigil

Coin of Emperor Traianus Decius (249-251 AD), “The Good-Fortune of this Age!”

Coin of Emperor Gaius “Caligula” with his sisters representing Security, Harmony, and Fortune.

Primary source materialSource What can it tell us?

Physical Remains

Pottery, glass, ceramics

Partially excavated miniature vases and figurines from Orchomenos in Greece

Sorted pottery sherds from an excavation in southern Turkey await cataloging

Primary Sources

Pottery

Primary source material

Written Documents Papyrus (also bark, wood) There are about 55,000

catalogued papyri What is on them?

Primary source materialSource What can it tell us?

Written Records

Papyrus(also bark, wood)

*there are about 55,000 catalogued papryi, what is written on them?

Papyrus from 221 BC written in Greek (there are few papyri written in Latin) petitioning King Ptolemy of Egypt for

an official land surveyor to settle a dispute between neighbors.

Birthday party

invitation from ca 100

AD, found written on

tree bark at Vindolanda,

Roman fortress in

northern Britain

Primary source materialSource What can it tell us?

Written Records

Epigraphy

*(Corpus Inscriptorum Latinorum has 180,000 inscriptions), what is on them?

Primary source material

Epigraphy

Primary source material

Written Documents Texts (transmission of ancient

literary works) Genres: poetry, comedy, tragedy,

history, philosophy, speeches, novels, biography

Estimations: 90-95% of all literature written between Homer (8th c. BC and St. Augustine (d. 430 AD) has been lost.

textual stemma, showing the diverging paths a single original manuscript may take

Secondary Sources Modern studies of the primary

materials Classical education (Latin and Greek) a

part of Western education since Middle Ages, greater role in Renaissance, develops into university Classical Studies Departments especially 19th and 20th centuries

Our Lesson Pottery

Epigraphy