Writing on the Wall : Graffiti and the Forgotten Jews of Antiquity / Karen B. Stern.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Stern, Karen B., author.

Series:

Princeton scholarship online.

Princeton scholarship online

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Graffiti--Religious aspects--Judaism.

Graffiti.

Jewish architecture.

Jewish art and symbolism.

Jewish art--History.

Jewish art.

Jews--History--To 70 A.D.

Jews.

Jews--Social life and customs--To 70 A.D.

Synagogue art--History.

Synagogue art.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xxiii, 283 pages) : illustrations, maps, plans

Place of Publication:

Princeton, NJ : Princeton University Press, [2018]

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

Few direct clues exist to the everyday lives and beliefs of ordinary Jews in antiquity. Prevailing perspectives on ancient Jewish life have been shaped largely by the voices of intellectual and social elites, preserved in the writings of Philo and Josephus and the rabbinic texts of the Mishnah and Talmud. Commissioned art, architecture, and formal inscriptions displayed on tombs and synagogues equally reflect the sensibilities of their influential patrons. The perspectives and sentiments of nonelite Jews, by contrast, have mostly disappeared from the historical record. Focusing on these forgotten Jews of antiquity, Writing on the Wall takes an unprecedented look at the vernacular inscriptions and drawings they left behind and sheds new light on the richness of their "idian lives.Just like their neighbors throughout the eastern and southern Mediterranean, Mesopotamia, Arabia, and Egypt, ancient Jews scribbled and drew graffiti everyplace--in and around markets, hippodromes, theaters, pagan temples, open cliffs, sanctuaries, and even inside burial caves and synagogues. Karen Stern reveals what these markings tell us about the men and women who made them, people whose lives, beliefs, and behaviors eluded commemoration in grand literary and architectural works. Making compelling analogies with modern graffiti practices, she documents the overlooked connections between Jews and their neighbors, showing how popular Jewish practices of prayer, mortuary commemoration, commerce, and civic engagement regularly crossed ethnic and religious boundaries.Illustrated throughout with examples of ancient graffiti, Writing on the Wall provides a tantalizingly intimate glimpse into the cultural worlds of forgotten populations living at the crossroads of Judaism, Christianity, paganism, and earliest Islam.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Illustrations

Preface

Acknowledgments

Abbreviations

Introduction. Graffiti, Ancient and Modern

Chapter 1. Carving Graffiti as Devotion

Chapter 2. Mortuary Graffiti in the Roman East

Chapter 3. Making One's Mark in a Pagan and Christian World

Rethinking Modern Graffiti through Ancient

Notes

References

Index

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 239-268) and index.

Previously issued in print: 2018.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 23. Mai 2019)

ISBN:

9781400890453

1400890454

OCLC:

1034988739