Workshop: Inscribing Domestic Space(s)

Since ancient times, domestic spaces were the stage of a variety of writing practices ranging from those dictated by everyday life needs to others witnessing the “social” and “communal” dimension of these settings. In almost every culture, from antiquity to modern times, written artefacts, which are extremely different in terms of materiality and function, concur in shaping the domestic landscape. Archaeological investigations conducted over the last centuries in various ancient sites, encompassing South America, the Italian peninsula, Egypt, Greece, Palestine, and Syria, have broadened our knowledge of domestic architecture, life within these spaces, and the role played by written artefacts in reconstructing the social and ritual functions of these settings. Ancient writing practices in domestic spaces recurrently find parallels in modern settings. Illustrative in this sense is the custom of placing protective spells on door lintels and house entrances already attested in Palestine and Syria in the Iron Age, a practice that still survives in modern times, for instance, in the Islamic and Jewish traditions. Over the last decades, scholarly interest in the social dimension of domestic settings has significantly increased. Alongside research that originated from the so-called “household archaeology” started in the 1980s, several studies have been devoted in recent years to written evidence found in domestic settings. However, a cross-cultural and interdisciplinary study of writing practices in domestic spaces aimed at tracing parallel and divergent phenomena still remains a desideratum. This conference aims to start to fill this gap through the examination of household writing practices from a global perspective. To explore, by combining archaeology and manuscript studies, how, in different cultures and historical phases, written artefacts shaped and interacted with domestic contexts and their role in broadening our knowledge of everyday life practices performed within these spaces, from menial to cultic activities. In addition, it aims to investigate how written artefacts interacted with various audiences (households, passers-by, supernatural entities) and if the location of specific types of written artefacts in different areas of the house might reflect different functions. From votive inscriptions, poems, or simple tags (i.e. personal names) written on perimetral walls by guests and passers-by, doorway inscriptions protecting the household from the evil eye intervention, shopping lists scribbled on the walls of service rooms and bedrooms by individuals living in these settings, to inscribed mosaics located in communal spaces testifying the wealth of house masters. Furthermore, this event intends to address various research questions, from the definition of domestic spaces and the relation between private and “public” areas to a more reliable identification of “inscribed household objects”, thus revising the traditional label instrumenta domestica. This conference aims to open an interdisciplinary dialogue meant to offer a cross-cultural perspective on the social understanding of the household as inscribed space.