Now, after the day's first #MATW2026 coffee pause, we have Moritz Hinsch (LMU): "Letters to the Gods? The Materiality of Writing Oracles" https://dmratzan.github.io/2026-nyu-lmu-materialities/papers.html#hinsch In which he considers the materiality of the lead oracle tablets from Dodona for what they reveal about literacy, writing, and religious belief

#ancientGeography #ancientReligion #archaeology #classics #epigraphy

Michael Hahn (LMU) takes the podium at #MATW2026 with "Empire and individual on sherds of clay": https://dmratzan.github.io/2026-nyu-lmu-materialities/papers.html#hahn

> The paper investigates the eastern desert between the Nile and the Red Sea in the Roman Imperial era as a laboratory for examining the relationship between empire and individual through the materiality of writing. Its central evidence consists of inscribed ostraca, mostly recovered from Roman military forts, quarries, and desert waystations.

#ancientHistory #ancientGeography #archaeology #classics #RomanEmpire #ancientWriting #ostraka #epigraphy #papyrology

Rounding out the first afternoon panel at #MATW2026 is #ISAWNYU faculty member Antonis Kotsonas: "Inscribed Armor, Personhood, and the Materiality of Writing in Archaic Crete" https://dmratzan.github.io/2026-nyu-lmu-materialities/papers.html#kotsonas . He's using for a case study a corpus of armor pieces (both inscribed and uninscribed), that were illegally excavated and dispersed in the mid 20th century from Afrati in Crete.

#ancientHistory #archaeology #ancientWarfare #epigraphy

And now at #MATW2026 we've heard from #ISAWNYU doctoral student Christina Stefanou on the topic "Re-materializing the Alphabet: Embodied and Material Entanglements in Phrygian Writing Practice(s)": https://dmratzan.github.io/2026-nyu-lmu-materialities/papers.html#stefanou

#ancientHistory #archaeology #epigraphy #Phrygians #ancientWriting

At #MATW2026 we've just heard #ISAWNYU doctoral student Manolis Mavromatis present a paper entitled "Materiality of Writing in Post-Hittite Syro-Anatolia: A Quantitative Analysis of Monumental Inscribed Objects": https://dmratzan.github.io/2026-nyu-lmu-materialities/papers.html#mavromatis

#ancientHistory #archaeology #Hittites #epigraphy

Now at #MATW2026 it's #ISAWNYU PhD student Yu Song delivering a paper entitled "Writing on the Body: Inscriptions on the Early Dynastic Mesopotamian Statues" : https://dmratzan.github.io/2026-nyu-lmu-materialities/papers.html#song

#ancientHistory #ancientArtHistory #archaeology #ancientMesopotamia #epigraphy

Next at #MATW2026 it's Mary Frazer (LMU) on "Estimating textual abundance in antiquity: the case of the cuneiform extispicy omen corpus" https://dmratzan.github.io/2026-nyu-lmu-materialities/papers.html#frazer

#ancientHistory #archaeology #cuneiform #epigraphy #ancientDivination #ancientScholarlyCommunication

Now at #MATW2026 Maria Khayutina (LMU) on "War and Writing in Pre-Imperial China: Inscribed Weapons in Archaeological Context": https://dmratzan.github.io/2026-nyu-lmu-materialities/papers.html#khayutina

#ancientChina #ancientHistory #archaeology #ancientWarfare #epigraphy

Sitting in a two-day workshop at #ISAWNYU: "New York University – Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich 2026 workshop on the Materialities of Ancient Texts" (hereafter #MATW2026 . Started with an engaging talk from ISAW's Lillian Lan-Ying Tseng on "Inscribed Objects, Empire, and Everyday Life in Han China": https://dmratzan.github.io/2026-nyu-lmu-materialities/papers.html#tseng

#ancientChina #ancientHistory #archaeology #epigraphy

New paper: Arabic in the Nabataean papyri

An online preview of my new article with Sigrid Kjær, ‘Arabic in the Nabataean papyri, including P.Yadin 7’, appeared on the Journal of Semitic Studies website last weekend.

Abstract: The impact of Arabic and Ancient North Arabian on the Nabataean corpus is well known. While Arabisms in the Nabataean inscriptions have received significant attention, the small, yet crucial corpus of Nabataean papyri remains relatively understudied in this regard. In this study, we reassess the possible North Arabian loanwords, especially those suggested by the first editors of the papyri and by Ada Yardeni in various separate studies. Based on the criteria of phonology, morphology, and attestation, we conclude that roughly half of the suggested examples cannot plausibly be attributed to borrowing from Arabic or other North Arabian languages. The low but significant number of remaining, plausible Arabisms strongly cluster in the semantic field of legal and financial technology, supporting the view that Arabic influence on Nabataean may have been more restricted in scope than has long been thought.

Enjoy!