Ostraca and Postcards. Secrets in Private Letters Written on Ostraca from Egypt
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.36991/PHILIA.202008Abstract
The inclusion of a secret sign as a clue which enables the recipient of a private letter to identify the sender was one of the ways of authentication. This is easily understandable when the sign is written on a folded and sealed papyrus. However, when the same type of authentication is written on ostraca, the secret sign becomes immediately visible and known to everybody, and, subsequently useless thereafter. In addition, the inclusion itself does not provide a secure way to prove that the ostracon was the original. For instance, some numbers (amounts of money) can be changed before the ostracon reaches the unsuspected recipient. This paper proposes that these or even other ostraca were put in containers in order to secure both the ostraca and the message.
Downloads
References
Ceccarelli 2013 P. Ceccarelli, Ancient Greek Letter Writing. A Cultural History (600 BC – 150 BC), Oxford 2013.
Depauw 2006 M. Depauw, The Demotic Letter. A Study of Epistolographic Scribal Traditions Against Their Intra- and Intercultural Background, Demotische Studien Vol. 14, Sommerhausen 2006.
Jouguet – Guéraud 1933 P. Jouguet – O. Guéraud, Ostraca grecs d’Eléphantine, Aegyptus 13, 1933, 443–454.
Litinas 2007 N. Litinas, P.Mich. inv. 1622 (= SB XVI 12589) + inv. 1580., ZPE 163, 2007, 191–194.
Litinas 2014 N. Litinas, 2873. Recording the Activities of a Woman, in: F. Reiter (ed.), Doku-mentarische Texte der Berliner Papyrussammlung, BGU XX, Berlin 2014, 212–225.
Nicholson 1994 J. J. Nicholson, The Delivery and Confidentiality of Cicero’s Letters, CJ 90, 1994, 33–63.
Reinfandt et al. 2015 L. Reinfandt – S. Tost – M. Jursa, Administrative Epistolography in An-cient Empires: An Introduction”, in: S. Procházka – L. Reinfandt – S. Tost (edd.), Official Episto-lography and the Language(s) of Power: Proceedings of the First International Conference of the Research Network Imperium & Officium, Papyrologica Vindobonensia 8, Vienna 2015, xi–xxiv.
Rea 1976 J. Rea, Another cημεῖον – in P.Oxy. VII 1068, ZPE 21, 1976, 116.
Rea 1977 J. Rea, Yet Another cημεῖον – SB VI 9415 (17), ZPE 26, 1977, 230.
Sarri 2018 A. Sarri, Material Aspects of Letter Writing in the Graeco-Roman World, Berlin – Boston, 2018.
Van Dongen 2014 E. G. D. Van Dongen, The postal service and the breach of mail confiden-tiality, Revista europea de historia de las ideas políticas y de las instituciones públicas 8 (diciembre 2014); online in http://www.eumed.net/ rev/rehipip/08/postal-service-rome.html.
Verhoogt 2009 A. Verhoogt, Dictating Letters in Greek and Roman Egypt from a Compa-rative Perspective, Version 1.0, March 2009, working paper, retrieved from https:// si-tes.lsa.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/235/2015/02/dictating1.pdf.
Youtie 1970 H.C. Youtie, ΣΗΜΕΙΟΝ in the Papyri and its Significance for Plato, Epistle 13 (360a-b), ZPE 6, 1970, 105–116 (= Scriptiunculae II, 963–975, Amsterdam 1973).
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2025 PHILIA. International Journal of Ancient Mediterranean Studies
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
The Philia Journal has undergone a significant update in its publication process since 2024. The journal, which was previously published only in print, is now published by Phoibos Publishing Company and is also available in digital format as Open Access.
The Open Access policy of PHILIA is fully aligned with the Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI) principles. All articles published in PHILIA are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY). This license permits all users to copy, share, and redistribute the articles, data sets, figures, and supplementary materials published in the journal on any platform, provided that appropriate credit is given to the author(s), the article title, the journal citation, and the DOI (Digital Object Identifier).
