Antiker Alltag

In Egypt, parchment had been used since the Early Bronze Age, but even in Roman times, people still wrote on materials that were cheaper and easily available. Above all, this included papyrus and pottery shards, so-called ostraca. Certain strata of the population could read and write and used the public libraries that existed in many cities. They wrote such everyday texts for a variety of occasions.
Patrick Reinard provides an introduction to the historical context of Egyptian society in the Roman Imperial period and to the media of writing. He then provides a reader with a selection of writing on violence and crime, religion, education and sports, economic life, and administration. These texts from everyday letters of private individuals, soldiers, and high dignitaries, from incidents between humans and animals, are both whimsical and familiar, and always all too human.