01. Archives and archival documents in ancient societies

There has not been much research on the archives of the governors in Late Antiquity. Apparently these archives are thought of as a typical element of a „bureaucratic“ state such as the Later Roman Empire, and it is assumed that they are well documented. But it is quite the opposite: there are almost no general references to archives of the governors. As in the case of the archives of the governors of the High Empire – whose existence has been doubted -, the existence of such archives in Late Antiquity can be proven only in an indirect way. This is achieved by collecting evidence for the principal elements of such archives and their preservation and for the members of staff who cared for them. This article puts together the evidence for diaries of daily activities of the governors, the collection of letters written by them and to them, the petitions submitted to them and the documents of their financial administration, with the aim to prove the existence of such archives.

It is well known that the Romans established in Egypt a differentiated class-structure of the provincial population beginning with the Roman and Alexandrian citizens, stretching over the hellenized privileged groups of the indigenous society and ending up with the ordinary Egyptian peasant. The article deals with the mechanisms of controlling the access to the privileged status groups of the domestic Egyptian population during the period of the Roman principate (1st to 3rd century CE); in particular concerning the residents of the local district capitals (metropolitai) and the members of the gymnasial class (apo gymnasiou). The specific focus is notably on the administrative process of granting admission to these status groups (the so called epikrisis) and the use which was made of certain archival documents (like census- and epikrisis records, population registers or tax lists) which were suitable to prove the status claimed by the persons applying for admission of their male offspring to one or both of these status groups.

Throughout the history oft he classical and hellenistic Greek polis archives have played an important role in the administration of a city-state. From the 2nd cent. BC on a reorganization both of the structure of the archives as well as the publication of documents registered in archives can be shown. The first part of this paper concerns two fragmented inscriptions from Kos (IG XII 4, 1, 84 and 85) which contain information of a restructuring of the city-archive. Parts II and III concern the manumission inscriptions from Delphi and the grave-inscriptions from imperial Asia Minor. The focus is on the original text handed in at the archive and the question whether the inscriptions give any information on the structure and wording of these deeds.