Graffiti Quest - (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

In Graffiti Quest, you step into an Egyptian world where walls speak. Ordinary and extraordinary people pen and carve quick insults, political slogans, prayers, and proud declarations--proof that ancient graffiti makers were just as likely to praise a king as to mock a colleague. This interdisciplinary volume invites you into the conversations sparked at a 2023 workshop, where archaeologists, historians, and epigraphers rethink how people engage with places and spaces. Featuring rare images, unpublished archival material, and fresh case studies, these proceedings offer you new tools and new stories that transform the way we read Egypt's inscribed past.

About the Author

Chloé Agar, University of Oxford, is a postdoctoral scholar and outreach specialist researching Coptic hagiography and the Late Antique and Early Islamic history of Egypt; she is also researcher in the Graffiti Gazetteer team.

Niv Allon, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, is Associate Curator at the Met. Next to his curatorial work, he has published extensively on written culture of ancient Egypt, including his monograph Writing, Violence and the Military (2019), and two co-authored monographs on Egyptian scribes.

Linda Hulin, University of Oxford, is leading researcher at the School of Archaeology of that university. She specialises in maritime archaeology, the materiality of interregional contact across the eastern Mediterranean, and particularly the Levant, Egypt, Cyprus and Libya.

Hana Navratilova, University of Oxford, is tutor and fellow at Harris Manchester College, specialising in history and epigraphy of Egypt and history of Egyptology.

Tim Penn, University of Reading, is Lecturer in Roman and Late Antique Material Culture at that university. His research interests range from landscape archaeology to ancient board games.

Marina Sartori, Hamburg University and University of Oxford, is a postdoctoral scholar, active in several archaeological missions. She is currently leading the project Understanding Written Artefacts.