Roger S. Bagnall Libros

Focusing on the early Christian texts discovered in former Roman Egypt, Roger Bagnall critiques the prevailing scholarship surrounding these manuscripts, arguing that much of it has been misguided. He explores the social, economic, and intellectual context of the time, revealing that the actual number of Christian books from the first three centuries AD is likely smaller than commonly thought. This examination challenges established narratives about Christianity's early presence in the region, offering a fresh perspective on the historical significance of these texts.

Most of the everyday writing from the ancient world―that is, informal writing not intended for a long life or wide public distribution―has perished. Reinterpreting the silences and blanks of the historical record, leading papyrologist Roger S. Bagnall convincingly argues that ordinary people―from Britain to Egypt to Afghanistan―used writing in their daily lives far more extensively than has been recognized. Marshalling new and little-known evidence, including remarkable graffiti recently discovered in Smyrna, Bagnall presents a fascinating analysis of writing in different segments of society. His book offers a new picture of literacy in the ancient world in which Aramaic rivals Greek and Latin as a great international language, and in which many other local languages develop means of written expression alongside these metropolitan tongues.

An indispensable guide for students and teachers to using ancient documents in their work, which shows how the methodologies of anthropology, comparative history and statistics can fruitfully be used alongside more traditional tools.

This second collection by Roger Bagnall brings together a further two dozen of his studies, this time covering Hellenistic, Roman, and Byzantine Egypt, published over the last thirty years. Many of the articles deal with issues of historical and papyrological method: the restoration of papyrus texts, the direction of archaeological work in Egypt, economic models for Roman Egypt, the usefulness of postcolonial theory, and approaches to the defective literary tradition for the Library of Alexandria. Others concentrate on particular bodies of evidence, ranging from inscriptions to ascetic literature, from registers to women's letters.

Die Dakhla Oase, weit vom Niltal entfernt im tiefsten Inneren der ägyptischen Westwüste gelegen, war einer der abgeschiedensten Winkel des Römischen Reichs. Die Gesellschaft, Wirtschaft und Kultur, die uns nach den Ausgrabungen des letzten Jahrzehnts in Amheida, dem antiken Trimithis, und an anderen Orten dieser Oase entgegentritt, erweist sie jedoch als genuinen Teil der griechischsprachigen römischen Welt: Wir begegnen einer exportorientierten Wirtschaft, einheimischen Kulten, die im 4. Jahrhundert dem Christentum weichen, der allgegenwärtigen römischen Armee und nicht zuletzt der vertrauten griechischen Bildung in Literatur und Rhetorik auf durchaus gehobenem Niveau. Roger Bagnall beschreibt und illustriert die Ergebnisse der neuen Ausgrabungen in der Oase und zeigt, welch neue Erkenntnisse über viele auch allgemeinere Fragen der Geschichte der Spätantike daraus zu ziehen sind.