Sponsored by the American Society of Greek and Latin Epigraphy
Organized by Nikolaos Papazarkadas (University of California, Berkeley)
The American Society of Greek and Latin Epigraphy invites submissions for a panel at the 2017 Annual Meeting of the Society for Classical Studies in Toronto.
The study of ancient economies has seen quantitative and qualitative transformation in recent years, not only because of the soaring number of articles and monographs devoted to the topic, but also thanks to the application of an increasingly complex range of theories derived from economics, political science, and other fields outside traditional Classics. Theories, however, should be applied to concrete evidence, which, given the well-known limitations of the literary sources available, more often than not comes in the form of epigraphic and papyrological discoveries.
The main objective of this panel will be to explore ways in which epigraphic material, both old and new, can be used to study the economies of the Greco-Roman world in the new sophisticated framework of theoretical analysis. For the purposes of this panel we construe the term economy in its broadest sense, comprising the production, distribution, exchange, and consumption of goods and services. Epigraphic material potentially pertinent to the topic includes: building accounts; cadastres; confiscation and sale records; decrees, edicts, laws and senatus consulta concerning financial issues; instrumentum domesticum; leasing documents; lending accounts; price edicts; public accounts and subscriptions; sacrificial calendars; stamps on amphoras and bricks; temple accounts and inventories, etc. Possible topics for exploration include: agriculture and pastoralism; banking; leasing and selling; local economies; markets; military finances; professional associations as economic agents; sacred finances; state control; taxation; trade, etc.
We welcome detailed studies of long-known inscriptions and epigraphic dossiers, presentations of unpublished epigraphic material, and more theoretical treatments that contain a significant epigraphic component.
Abstracts will be evaluated anonymously by members of the ASGLE Executive Committee, and should not be longer than 650 words (bibliography excluded): please follow the SCS “Guidelines for Authors of Abstracts”. All Greek should either be transliterated or employ a Unicode font. The Abstract should be sent electronically as a Word file, along with a PDF of the Submission Form, by March 1, 2016 to Nikolaos Papazarkadas at mailto:papazarkadas@berkeley.edu