The British School at Rome (BSR)’s post-graduate epigraphy course experience is best captured by the words of alumni Jurriaan Gouw, “This is what university is supposed to feel like”. Indeed, he meant the collaborative nature of high learning, which in this case was the undertaking of deciphering niche graffiti scored into Roman plaster. This was the task I had been set as part of my day job at the Museum of London Archaeology (MOLA). I was reviewing a series of scored writing on walls which included a pieced together painter’s mark and a reassembled Greek alphabet. It was going to be a challenge, as these fragments were from London, UK and we had no other domestic examples with which to compare. With a stroke of luck, the timing of the task coincided with my enrolment in the BSR post-graduate epigraphy course.
MOLA unearthed a large building complex in the Liberty Southwark area. Among the remains of a possible mansio were fragments of painted wall-plaster recovered from a series of pits and, therefore, completely divorced from their walls and even buildings. These fragments were used as fill packing in pits that were created after the demolition of the building. These fragments were reconstructed and a series of wall paintings were revealed once the plasters were put back together. Most of the schemes identified were that of panels with a dado; panels being the most common form of decoration in Roman Britain[1]. Among the material is a series of scored writing, which included a tabula ansata with the word “FECIT” still visible. Part of the “F” was missing and the tabula continued beyond the break of the fragment, with a name lost amongst the assemblage. This type of maker’s mark on building materials is usually seen on ceramics such as bricks and tiles in Roman London and not wall-plaster. Another two fragments joined together revealed a near complete Greek alphabet. Some other bits of writing and pictorial graffiti was also found from the assemblage.
The scored letters had been assessed under a x10 microscope, as both pieces of writings were small in size and an initial interpretation of the epigraphy was undertaken. It was concluded that the writing within the tabula was scored when the plaster was still soft whilst the Greek alphabet was scratched into a dry wall, with plaster fragments flaking off at the edge of the letters. It was deemed that the writings on the walls had great potential due to their rarity in Britain and a series of research questions was put forth to Dr Abigail Graham, the course coordinator of the post-graduate epigraphy course.
Among a series of research questions were:
– Can we confirm that the writing with the tabula is a maker’s mark?
-What is the significance of the Greek alphabet and what can we say about its purpose?
-What other comparative examples exist in the Roman world, including in-situ examples in Italy?
More general research questions also included how writing on walls were usually created and whether there was a permanency behind the intention of the author rather than a temporal expression by those lacking a voice.
This process was of course aided by Dr Abigail Graham and Professor Grace Banfield’s expertise on the locality of Roman in-situ writing visible on walls in and around the areas of Rome. The creation of comparable data was therefore significantly focused on wall-epigraphy related or similar to those within the research topic. This was further aided by the digital access tutorials provided by the teaching staff, visits to local universities, special permission to access otherwise restricted archaeological sites, special photographing requests provided by the BSR and, of course, the 24 hour access to the school’s library that included access to resources from other international research schools in Rome. Further opinions on the research topics were provided by the PhD candidate students attending the course and whose expertise ranged from classical studies to archaeology and the visual arts. This was especially important for the practical and contextual understanding of the wall-writings. For example, visual artist Ash Towers PhD, helped confirm the effect of a sharp object scoring soft plaster and the evidence of scratching letters into a dry wall. The framework of the inscribed letters, or the document icon of the tabula was assessed through a visual lens. The well inscribed letters with a neatly scored tabula would impact how a reader may engage with the inscription[2]. Other views shared on the topic included the significance and nature of inscription versus graffiti, especially in the context of the writing framed by a tabula; writing styles during different periods of the late-Republic and early-Principate; and of course, further introductions to academic research and researchers who specialised in the relative area of study. It should be noted that the conversations associated to the topic often lasted into the night, in a comfortable environment with sudden bursts of creative thought shared amongst friends and spontaneous visits to the library.
A framework of research was presented to the colleagues at the BSR and feedback was provided on the strength of the argument and the direction of prospective research into the topic. For example, the comparisons of other Greek alphabets of similar sized letters, especially those in Herculaneum, Pompeii and Ostia Antica were commented on by my peers as some had indications that they were utilised for practical use whilst others were interpreted as evidence of writing practice. The strength of the evidence was challenged based on archaeological circumstantial and contextual evidence as well as the writing style of the inscriptions. For example, it was suggested that the Greek alphabet was very proficiently-written and therefore unlikely to be writing practice.
The research continued for a year after the completion of the epigraphy course and so did the constant support from both the course director and the peers from the school. The submission of the material to Britainnia, Cambridge University Press was not without the review of these individuals. They contributed to the conclusions that the framed words within the tabula was an inscription by the artist to sign their work and that the Greek alphabet was indeed an extremely rare graffiti. Their support on analysing the epigraphy of Roman London continues to this day.
Bibliography
Davey, N and Ling, R. 1982 Wall–painting in Roman Britain
Graham, A, S. 2021, Reading Visual Cues on the So-called Archive Wall at Aphrodisias: A cognitive Approach to Monumental Documents, American Journal of Archaeology
[1] Davey and Ling 1982, 31
[2] Graham 2021, 576
