Metallic Documents of Antiquity

While preparing the general exams for the Ph.D. at Case Western Reserve University I noticed recurring references to metallic documents in the literature that pertains, in one way or another, to ancient records and libraries. Most of the references were obscure and casual—like the merest mention of “various metals” in a discussion of ancient book materials,¹ or a sourceless seriation including “The Nicean creed[!], Chinese books with leaves of gold,” and the “Telugu plate” as exemplars of writing on metal.² Such references, while interesting enough in their own right, invariably pose a number of unanswered questions, especially if the reader is interested in the sensory data of written communications: Which metals have been used for the reception of writing in antiquity? What is the Telugu plate? How can descriptions of the metallic media of the Nicene Creed and specific gold-leaf manuscripts of Chinese books be located?

References to metallic documents are also found in ancient classical literature. Plutarch, for example, mentions a Lycian spring on the outskirts of the city of Xanthus which on one occasion boiled up of its own accord and overflowed in the presence of Alexander the Great, depositing a bronze writing tablet [delton chalken] at his feet. The tablet was inscribed with ancient writings indicating that the kingdom of the Persians would be overthrown by the Greeks. Alexander, therefore, encouraged by the metallic document, proceeded forthwith to reduce the coastal areas instead of then and there waging an all out war with Darius.³ There are similar notices elsewhere in Plutarch and in Pausanias,⁴ and they doubtless occur in other ancient authors.

Descriptions of metallic documents are relatively easy to locate if they are properly referenced in citations. An example of such referencing is the use by Friedrich Blass of the oldest Greek letter extant in order to illustrate certain linguistic phenomena in a discussion of the so-called epistolary aortist tense.⁵ The letter is identified as a leaden tablet from the 4th century B.C., and appropriate references are provided. Blass, of course, is more interested in the linguistic information provided by the document than in its material. His only concern is “der Aorist im Briefstil”—the fact that the aorist is inscribed in lead is unimportant. But his references nevertheless lead to important discussions of the tablet, including translations and photographic plates.⁶

Most published accounts of metallic documents, at least in classical sources, have been effectively removed from the layman’s view by a simple convention of scholarship. The implications of this convention first came to my attention upon perusing a basic paleographical treatment of ancient writing materials.

Of the various materials which have been used . . . to receive writing, there are three, viz. papyrus, vellum and paper, which . . . have . . . displaced all others. But of the other materials several, including some which at first sight seem of a most unpromising character, have been largely used. If the ordinary material fail, they [the ancients] must extemporize a substitute. If something more durable is wanted, metal or stone may take the place of vellum or paper. But with inscriptions on these harder materials we have, in the present work, but little to do. Such inscriptions generally fall under the head of epigraphy. Here we have chiefly to consider the softer materials on which handwriting, as distinct from monumental engraving, has been wont to be inscribed. Still . . . there are certain exceptions; and to some extent we shall have to inquire into the employment of metals, clay, potsherds, and wood, as well as of leaves, bark, linen, wax, papyrus, vellum, and paper as materials for writing.⁷

It had never really occurred to me, prior to reading the above, that scholarly distinctions between documents/monuments,⁸ palaeography/papyrology/epigraphy,⁹ etc., tend to relegate the study of specific aspects of writing to specific categories within the highly fragmented study of writing.¹⁰ Once the bibliographical implications of such conventions are understood, however, the investigation of this or that phase of writing is greatly simplified. For the student of metallic documents this means that all sorts of inscriptions on metal are conventionally regarded by classicists as archaeological monuments, and that scholars therefore tend to describe them in epigraphical, rather than palaeolographical or papyrological, publications. Thus an inscribed piece of metal may have much more in common with a sheet of paper than, say, with the Athenian tribute lists; but both are treated as epigraphs solely because each of them is hard.

The bibliography accompanying this paper attempts to assemble some of the scholarly materials which deal with the metallic documents of antiquity. Beginning with a knowledge of the golden laminae of Pyrgi,¹¹ the copper scroll from Qumran, and a nucleus of sources from the writings of Hugh Nibley,¹² I began searching the epigraphical publications of classical literature. The result is a preliminary list which shows less success in Near and Far Eastern studies than in Classics, but nevertheless attempts to document the existence of at least one exemplar from most geographical areas of major importance in antiquity.

How Many Ancient Metallic Documents

Probably no one knows precisely how many ancient metallic documents exist today, but Nibley’s estimate of one hundred examples is certainly low, since the number of Roman military diplomas alone had already exceeded that figure in 1924.¹³ The metallic document appears very early in the history of writing and may be found even after the invention of printing. Lead, for example, has been used for writing in late medieval and early modern times, as “leaden plates inscribed with historical and diplomatic records . . . are still in existence, which belong to the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.”¹⁴ It is known also that large collections of metal documents have existed in antiquity, and that they were frequently reserved for writings of considerable importance.

The use of bronze by the Greeks and Romans, as a material upon which to engrave votive inscriptions, laws, treaties, and other official documents, is established by various authorities. The famous “Laws of the Twelve Tables” were engraved upon bronze, and were suspended outside the Capitol at Rome. They most probably perished in the fire which took place in the reign of the Emperor Vespasian, consuming the Capitol and destroying three thousand tablets of bronze or brass containing the laws, treaties, and other important documents of the Roman Empire.¹⁵

How much information has been preserved on ancient metallic epigraphs? It is too early to attempt definitive answers to this question, as we know of no ancient treatises on metallic epigraphy, and modern treatments of the subject are widely scattered, highly specialized, and often difficult to obtain. My own studies have thus far been more search than research, followed by immense frustration over the impossibility of consulting many of the pertinent documents once their existence is known.¹⁶ Some preliminary observations on the contents of metallic documents can be made, however, although the materials in the following bibliography must await the careful collation and evaluation of competent scholars in many fields.

Most of the epigraphs listed bear relatively short inscriptions,¹⁷ although there is some evidence to suggest that the ancients also prepared lengthy metallic texts of which the Qumran copper scroll is a good example.¹⁸ Pausanias also claims to have seen in Boeotia a leaden book [molubdon] inscribed with Hesiod’s Works and Days, a literary opus of some thirty Oxford pages.¹⁹ The seven bronze tablets discovered in 1444 at Gubbio, Italy, the ancient Iguvium, seem to be larger than usual, ranging from 12×16 inches to 22×33 inches, and contain “the only extant records of any considerable extent in the Umbrian dialect; that is, in that language which, with Oscan, Latin, and several other dialects, makes up the Italic branch of the Indo-European family.”²⁰ All of the tablets except III and IV are inscribed on both sides, and collectively contain more than 4,000 words, 54 long lines of which appear on the recto of tablet VII alone.²¹ These tablets deserve and receive close philological treatment in a full-blown scholarly monograph of 341 pages. Pausanias also informs us that the Thirty Years’ Peace which terminated the so-called First Peloponnesian War was inscribed on a bronze monument [stele chalke] and displayed at Elis.

In front of the image of Zeus there is a bronze stele containing the terms of a thirty years’ peace between Lacedaemon and Athens. The Athenians made this treaty after they had subjugated Euboea for the second time. . . . The treaty specifically states that the Argives were not officially acknowledged as a party to the peace between Athens and Sparta, but that Athens and Argos might, if they desired, befriend one another in private. Such were the stipulations of the treaty.²²

A similar treaty on metal is known from ancient Anatolia.

It is worth recalling . . . , in this connection, that the contemporary Hittites of Asia Minor . . . had a certain predilection for inscriptions on metal. Not only are their inscribed signets often composed of bronze or precious metals, but the same usage was also applied to larger documents. Thus when the ambassadors of the great Hittite King Khetasira went to Egypt to make a treaty with Ramses II they bore with them a silver plate on which the Hittite text of the treaty was engraved in the native language and character.²³

The use of bronze for recording certain types of juristic literature was also popular in Italy during the Hellenistic period. “Exceptionally, leges and senatusconsulta were published on bronze tablets; international treaties were always so published.”²⁴ It should be observed that, whereas nineteenth century scholarship often boggled at these and similar metallic documents, a recent article has explained their peculiarities on the assumption that they were initially published in Rome and later taken to Italian and Greek towns where they were copied onto local tablets.²⁵ This meaty and important article fairly bristles with bibliographical information on the metallic juridical literature of Rome and deserves careful study. Mommsen and his contemporaries regarded the four bronze inscriptions from Tarentum, Veleia, Ateste, and Heraclea as ingenious, poorly executed, and frequently unintelligible; some even declared them the products of bungling draftsmen who frequently altered the texts, etc.

The internal problems of these inscriptions are thus met by questioning their evidential value . . . .

In the following pages a fresh approach is ventured. . . . It seems better to start with the texts and the otherwise clear facts of Roman documentary processes; to consider how and by whom the bronzes were prepared; and thus to attempt, without circularity, to explain what has been rightly called their “highly problematical form.”²⁶

Frederiksen breathes a new willingness to believe that Roman juristic literature was indeed published on metal and easily parries the objection that bronze archives and letter writing on bronze plates are simply unthinkable.

From earliest times until the age of Augustus bronze was the usual form of publication in Italy. Unlike Greece, Italy had few kinds of stone suited to the inscription of long texts, until the heavy Augustan exploitation of the Luna quarries; she had, however, again unlike Greece, good supplies of bronze—a fact which more than any other explains the relative epigraphic paucity of Greek and Republican Italy.²⁷

Frederiksen’s conclusion is that the extant bronze epigraphs of the Republican period, if not the copies actually displayed at Rome, “were the work of local scribes instructed by local magistrates.”²⁸

As the treaty with Cibyra or the Pirate Law suggests, a city might allowably choose another medium, and wooden tablets were not only permitted but common. . . . Nor should it be forgotten that most of Rome’s allies, in Italy as well as abroad, possessed public archives of a systematic kind. Since 225 B.C. we must suppose the existence of formulae togatorum and hence of censoriae tabulae, doubtless increasingly assimilated to Roman models. Such local machinery was, at very least, adequate to the demands that Rome might make of it, and it was not absurd for Roman legislators to rely upon allied initiative for the copying and preservation of laws that concerned them. Thus it was certainly with the municipal laws and charters of the Republic. We know them from the copies made in the towns themselves . . . .²⁹

A last example of extensive writing on metal cited here is a sophisticated document on four bronze plates bearing some of the laws regulating Roman mining operations in the provinces. Two of the plates were discovered at Aljustrel, Portugal, one in 1876, the other in 1907. Together their English translation requires three full pages of normal journal size [i.e., 8½×11 inches], an average of one such page per tablet side.³⁰ They were written by officials with firsthand experience at mining, “men who understood their subject thoroughly . . .”³¹ The first tablet deals in a general way with provincial mining operations.

This is obviously not something put together by a local official to suit the place under his command, but something of a much wider application that had been developed over a long time and adapted to suit new conditions as they arose. It was a code leaving few loopholes, well understood and accepted by the parties concerned. It had been applied many times before and was just now being put into operation at Aljustrel and next year might well be initiated at a British mine.³²

The second tablet applies to a specific operation in a particular area and regulates, in addition to mining practices, the use of public baths, the cobbling of shoes, the cutting of hair, the fulling of cloth, and the exemption of schoolmasters from dues payable to the procurator.³³

Religious Metallic Documents

Of the many religious documents on metal we notice here the Orphic plates of gold and the golden books of the Pyu. Eight small plates of gold discovered in Crete and Italy constitute “the main sources of evidence for the Orphic beliefs regarding the fate of the soul after death,”³⁴ and provide invaluable information on Orphic doctrine generally.

It comes from the side of epigraphy, since the information is contained in the writing found on some thin plates of gold which have been taken at different times from ancient graves. . . . These inscriptions have long been famous, and a whole literature has sprung up around them. The plates were found lying beside the skeleton, some near its hand, others folded up beside the skull. One (that at Petelia) had been rolled up and enclosed in a cylinder attached to a delicate gold chain, clearly in order that it might be worn as an amulet.³⁵

The inscriptions on the plates are extracts from a poem or book of poems which “must have been at least as early as the fifth century B.C.”³⁶ That the customary use of such plates persisted for centuries may be inferred from the discovery of yet a ninth plate believed to have been found at Rome and belonging to the second or third century A.D.³⁷

The purpose of the plates is clear from their contents. The dead man is given those portions of his sacred literature which will instruct him how to behave when he finds himself on the road to the lower world. They tell him the way he is to go and the words he is to say. They also quote the favorable answer which he may expect from the powers of that world when he has duly reminded them of his claims on their benevolence.³⁸

Among the most important Pali inscriptions of the ancient Pyu are (1) two golden plates discovered at Maunggun, probably from the first centuries A.D., and (2) a gold-leaf book of twenty numbered pages found at Hmawza (Old Prome) in 1926 and dating from the fifth century A.D.³⁹ The Maunggun plates were found in a brick in 1898 by someone digging the foundation for a new pagoda.

Each of the two plates bears three lines of writing and is inscribed on one side only. The letters show through on the reverse The inscriptions consist of quotations from the Buddhist scriptures. They are in the Pali language and are written in characters which, it is believed, were in vogue in the first century A.D. when the kingdom of Prome (Siri-khettara) was in the zenith of its power. The alphabet corresponds to a large extent with that used in the inscriptions at Pagan of the fourth and fifth centuries. . . .⁴⁰

The gold-leaf book from Hmawza has been described as “the most important record hitherto discovered of Pali Buddhism in Lower Burma.”⁴¹ It is “a manuscript in every way similar to the palm-leaf manuscript so common in India and Burma but with leaves of gold, twenty in number, with writing incised on one side.”⁴² The fact that the palm-leaf manuscript lies behind the form of this golden book is part of a familiar pattern, as ancient metallic documents often assume the forms of conventional documents. Wooden tablets, for example, served as models for the Idalion bronze plate from Cyprus and the metallic writings of the Hittites.⁴³ Excavators, of course, have little or no chance of retrieving such perishable inscriptions from antiquity, but they often hope to find metallic documents which reflect them.⁴⁴ It is not surprising, therefore, to discover in Burma “a book of twenty leaves of gold exactly of the nature of old palm-leaf manuscripts of India, each inscribed on one side, placed within two covers of the same metal.”⁴⁵

These leaves, within their two gold covers, were found bound together by a thick gold wire with its end fastened to the covers by sealing wax and small glass beads. . . . There are two holes in each leaf and cover, through which the gold wire was passed, to keep the whole in position and proper order. It was necessary to cut this wire in order to free the leaves. Each leaf measures 6½″ in length and about 1¼″ in breadth, and contains three lines of writing. . . . The manuscript is made up of short extracts in Pali from the Abbidhamma and Vinaya pitaka. It is well known that, among the Buddhists, there are four classes of objects of worship, viz., (1) the Buddha’s corporeal relics, (2) the objects he personally used . . . , (3) trees . . . and other objects or places which have been made holy by the presence of the Master, and (4) the Law or Dhamma Preached by the Buddha as preserved in the Tripitakas. This is the reason why, in some cases and in the absence of other relics, manuscripts are enshrined in pagodas. This custom is responsible for the discovery of our manuscript among the other objects, as embodying the Dhamma.⁴⁶

The twenty leaves contain altogether eight extracts from various books of the Pali pitakas and include the twelve Nidanas or Paticca Samuppada, the seven kinds of Vipassana nana (contemplative knowledge), the thirty-seven bodhipakkhiya dhammas or Elements of Enlightenment, the classification of Buddha’s four confidences, the fourteen kinds of knowledge possessed by Buddha, the categories of best things propounded by Buddha, the missionary march of Buddha and the three Kassapa brothers into the Rajagaha city, and the well-known praise of the Buddha known as the mirror of truth.⁴⁷ The existence of other metallic documents in Burma may also be safely assumed from another discovery of “small gold and silver plates with Pyu inscriptions punched on them in relief. There are 16 of them, but many are only fragments.”⁴⁸

Closely allied to the above religious literature on metals are the magical texts and curse tablets which, like the Orphic gold plates, have inspired a large scholarly literature.⁴⁹ The Greek papyri have disclosed a large number of incantations, magician’s handbooks, etc., directed toward bending the supernatural powers to the service of individuals. Metallic inscriptions figure prominently in spells and the like, which sometimes smack of modern huckstering, as in the following example:

“A magic formula that restrains anger, secures goodwill, success in the lawcourts, works even with kings; there is absolutely nothing better. Take a silver plate, inscribe on it with a bronze pencil the figure drawn below and the names, carry it in the folds of your dress and you will win” (then follow the names [nomina magica] and the actual formula).⁵⁰

Whereas magic formulae invoking benefit and protection were normally inscribed on gold and silver, those employed for curses and black magic are usually found on lead or tin—the epigraphical equivalents, more or less, of voodoo dolls and other forms of sorcery.⁵¹ Tablets of the latter variety are found, often in great quantities, all over the Mediterranean basin. “Evidently the method of this magical school had established itself fairly uniformly wherever Greek was understood.”⁵²

The curses used in tablets of this sort conform in a general way to a fairly definite type. The writer usually says that he is binding down . . .or devoting . . . some enemy to the infernal powers. Often he not only names his enemy, but also specifies the bodily parts or mental faculties of his victim, which he wishes to cripple or make helpless. He may pray the deities whom he invokes to make his enemy powerless, to prevent further hostile action on his part, and to subject him to the will of the writer. This plan applies roughly to almost all the curse tablets that are known. Such variations as there are arise naturally from differences in the relations between the operator and his intended victim, according as their enmity proceeds from litigation, business quarrels, love, or sport—for many are directed against charioteers of the opposing circus faction.⁵³

Both curse tablets described by Youtie and Bonner involve squabbles over money. One is obscure and specifically mentions only a creditor and a law suit, but the other names Pancharia, the woman invoking the curse, who wants to render one man and two women powerless to harm her. She is afraid of them, probably because they may call her to account for some mismanaged stewardship or defraud her in some way. “Whether a loan, a partnership, or an inheritance is concerned does not appear.”⁵⁴ The writer of another curse inscription consigns to the infernal powers some thief or thieves who stole something from him. He addresses the chthonians cautiously, fearing to annoy them but feeling that he must do so. He suspects the identity of the offender(s) who live(s) in a specific little house in town, and curses not only the actual perpetrator(s) of the deed, “but those as well, who, knowing something about the theft, deny that they have such knowledge.”⁵⁵

Many of the lead tablets containing curses were rolled up and pierced with a nail; and it was a common practice to deposit them in graves, either as a convenient approach to the lower word, or, as sometimes happened, because the spirit of the dead person was adjured to serve as an agent of the operator. A considerable number have also been found in wells and cisterns which, like graves, were viewed as openings to the infernal regions, and were believed to be haunted by demons.⁵⁶

There are extant today more actual exemplars of ancient writing on metal than most people realize, and many of them go back to the very persons, places, times and events which they describe. Among the subjects not covered in this paper they comprise such things as military diplomas, dikasts’ pinakia, intentionally sealed and buried documents, foundation deposits, letters, economic accounts, political propaganda, maps, dedications, enactments, prayers, and even mummy tickets—for all of which and more we respectfully request that the bibliography, limited as it is, be carefully studied. We hope to edit a substantial collection of writings on metallic epigraphy in the not-too-distant future. The subject is a fascinating one, and the metallic documents of antiquity may yet turn out to deserve more than a casual footnote in the history of written communications.

Metallic Epigraphy: 
A Working Bibliography

General

Edward Maunde Thompson, An Introduction to Greek and Latin Paleography (Oxford: Clarendon, 1912), pp. 8, 11–13.

David Diringer, The Hand-Produced Book (New York: Philosophical Library, 1953), pp. 42, 46, 48–51, 58, 62, 65, 72, 189, 343–44, 358, 375, 382–83, 399.

The Alphabet; A Key to the History of Mankind. Completely revised with the assistance of Reinhold Regensburger (3d ed.; New York: Funk and Wagnalls, 1968), 1:19, 42, 48, 57, 68, 88, 113, 138–39, 153, 193, 199, 204, 212–13, 228, 237, 259, 263–64, 300, 307, 321–22, 328, 394, 398–99, 403. Many plates are also provided in vol. 2 (e.g., 10.1; 14.12, 13, 20; 17.3; 18.8; 19.4; 20.3; conclusion 8, etc.).

Elmer D. Johnson, A History of Libraries in the Western World (New York: Scarecrow Press, 1965), pp. 12, 16, 64, 72.

The Far East

CHINA.

David Diringer, The Alphabet, 1:68. The Hand-Produced Book, pp. 383, 399.

F. Thelma Eaton, The History of the Book; An Outline and a Reading List . . . (4th ed.; Champaign, Illinois: Illini Union Bookstore, 1959), p. 12.

Chin shib wen (Peking: 1926). A bibliography listing, according to Diringer, The Alphabet, 1:68, some 800 epigraphical documents on metal and stone. The Chinese title means “inscriptions on metal and stone.”

Tsuen-Hsuin Tsien, Written on Bamboo and Silk; The Beginnings of Chinese Books and Inscriptions (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962), pp. v, vii, 1, 4–6, 8, 38–41, 44, 47–48, 50–58, 90, 179–181.

Marco Polo, The Book of Ser Marco Polo the Venetian Concerning the Kingdoms and Travels of the East, translated and edited, with notes, by . . . Sir Henry Yule (3d ed. rev.; New York: C. Scribner’s Sons, 1929), 1: prologue 15–16; 34–35, 350–51, note 2 pp. 351–52, 353–54, 431.

BURMA.

Maung Tun Nyein, “Maunggun Gold Plates,” Epigraphia Indica 5 (1898–99): 101–2.

———, “Gold and Silver Plates with Inscriptions,” Annual Report of the Archaelogical Survey of India 1926–27, 179–180.

G. H. Luce, “The Ancient Pyu,” Journal of the Burma Research Society 27 (1937): 239–53.

“The Golf-Leaf Pall Manuscript of Old Prome,” Report of the Superintendent, Archaeological Survey of Burma, 1938–1939, 12–22 and plates IV–VI.

David Diringer, The Alphabet, 1:322–23, supplies additional bibliography on Burma.

INDIA.

David Diringer, The Alphabet, 1:263–64.

E. B. Cross, “On the Karens,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 4 (1854): 289–316.

“Proceedings at New Haven, October, 1866,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 9 (1871): xi–xii.

Alonzo Bunker, “On a Karen Inscription-Plate,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 10 (1880): 172–76.

F. E. Pargiter, “A Copperplate Discovered at Kasia, and Budda’s Death-Place,” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1913, 151–53.

J. H. Marshall, “The Date of Kanishka,” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1914, 973–86. “Misc. communications,” pp. 987–99, should also be read.

Sten Konow, “Kalawan Copper-Plate Inscription of the Year 134,” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1932, 949–65.

G. Ramadas, “Kesaribeda Copper Plate Grant of Maharaja Arthhapali Bhattaraka of the Nala Family,” Journal of the Bihar Research Society 34 (1948): 33–42.

The Near East

GENERAL.

Helmuth T. Bossert, “Sie schrieben auf Holz,” in Minoica; Festschrift zum 80 Geburtstag von Johannes Sundwall,. hrsg. von Ernst Grumach (“Deutche Akad. d. Wiss., Berlin. Schriften der Sektion für Altertumswiss., 12; Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1958), pp. 75–79.

SUMER.

F. Thureau-Dangin, “Une tablette en or provenant d’Umma,” Revue d’Assyrologie et d’archéologie orientale 34 (1937): 177–82.

BABYLONIA.

C. J. Gadd, “Babylonian Foundation Texts: 1. Limestone and Copper Tablets of a Wife of Rim-Sin,” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1926, 679–84.

ASSYRIA.

Jean Bottéro, “Deux tablettes de fondation, en or et en argent, d’Assurnasirpal II,” Semitica 1 (1948), 25–32.

Walter Andrae, Hettitische Inschriften auf Bleistreifen aus Assur (“Aus-grabungen der Deutschen Orient-Gesellschaft in Assur. E: Inschriften. VI Hettitische Blei-inschriften mitgeteilt von Walter Andrae; Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs ’sche Buchhandlung, 1924, 1–2, 7–8.

Helmuth T. Bossert, “Zu den Bleibriefen aus Assur,” Orientalia 20, n.s. (1951): 70–77.

D. J. Wiseman, “Assyrian Writing Boards,” Iraq 17 (1955): 3–13.

Margaret Howard, “Technical Description of the Ivory Writing-Boards from Nimrud,” Iraq 17 (1955): 14–20.

EGYPT.

James Henry Breasted, Ancient Records of Egypt; Historical Documents from the Earliest Times to the Persian Conquest, Collected, Edited and Translated with Commentary, 5 vols. (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1906–1907). Vol. 3, nos. 367–91 has most of the basic data pertaining to the Hittite treaty on the silver plates from Kheta. Vol. 4, nos. 151–412 is the invaluable and remarkable Papyrus Harris, the largest papyrus extant. For metallic documents see nos. 202, 231, 285, 317–18, 343.

E. A. Wallis Budge, ed. and trans., The Papyrus of Ani; A Reproduction in Facsimile Edited, with Heiroglyphic Transcript, Translation and Introduction: Book of the Dead (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1913), pp. 14–15.

Hermann Ranke, “Eine Bleitafel mit hieroglyphischer Inschrift,” Zeitschrift für Ägyptische Sprache und Altertumskunde 74 (1938), 49–51.

ASIA MINOR.

William Wright, The Empire of the Hittites . . . (London: James Nisbet, 1884), pp. 26–33, 65–66, 70–71.

Archibald H. Sayce, The Hittites; The Story of a Forgotten Empire (London: Religious Tract Society, 1925), pp. 40–51, 117–18, 170–71.

Muhibbe Anstock-Darge, “Semitische Inschriften auf Silbertäfelchen aus dem ‘Bertiz’-Tal (Umgebung von ‘Maras’),” Jahrbuch für Kleinasi-atische Forschung 1 (1950): 199–200.

SYRIA-PALESTINE.

H. C. Youtie and C. Bonner, “Two Curse Tablets from Beisan,” Transactions of the American Philological Association 68 (1937): 43–77, 128.

David Diringer, The Alphabet, 1:113–16.

William Foxwell Albright, “The Ancient Near East at the Congress of Orientalists in Rome,” Bulletin of the American School of Oriental Research 60 (December 1935): 2–9.

–——, The Archaeology of Palestine (Hammondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin Books, 1949), p. 185.

E. Dhorme, “Déchiffrement des inscriptions pseudo-hiéroglyphiques de Byblos,” Syria 25 (1946–48), 1–35. Other basic sources on the metallic documents of Byblos are found in Ignace J. Gelb, A Study of Writing (rev. ed.; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1965), p. 266.

William Foxwell Albright, “A Hebrew Letter from the Twelfth Century B.C.,” Bulletin of the American School of Oriental Research 73 (February 1939): 9–13.

Julian Obermann, “An Early Phoenician Political Document,” Journal of Biblical Literature 58 (1939): 229–41.

Douglas Jones, “The Traditio of the Oracles of Isaiah of Jerusalem,” Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 67 (1955): 226–46.

D. Barthelemy and J. T. Milik, Qumran Cave 1: “Discoveries in the Judaean Desert” 1 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1955), 4, 25.

John Marco Allegro, The Treasure of the Copper Scroll; The Opening and Decipherment of the Most Mysterious of the Dead Sea Scrolls, a Unique Inventory of Buried Treasure (Garden City: Doubleday, 1960), pp. 24–30, 43, 47, 58, 60–62.

H. Wright Baker, “How the Dead Sea Scrolls Were Opened,” Engineering 181 (1956): 194–96.

“Unrolling the Past,” Chemical and Engineering News 34 (1956): 4254–59, 4330–31. Includes remarks by W. F. Albright on “The Significance of the Dead Sea Scrolls.”

Matthew Black, The Scrolls and Christian Origins (New York: C. Scribner’s Sons, 1961), pp. 3–4, 12.

CYPRUS.

Helmuth T. Bossert, “Sie schrieben auf Holz,” in Minoica: Festschrift zum 80. Geburtstag von Johannes Sundwall, hrsg. von Ernst Grumach (“Deutche Akad. d. Wiss., Berlin, Schriften der Sektion fur Altertumswiss., 12”; Berlin: Akadmie-Verlag, 1958), 76–78.

PERSIA.

Ernst Herzfeld, “Eine neue Darius-Inschrift aus Hamadan,” Deutsche Literaturzeitung 47 (1926): 2105–8.

Sidney Smith, “Assyriological Notes: Inscription of Darius on Gold Tablet,” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1926, 433–36. See also Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1927, 97–101; 1930, 452.

F. H. Weissbach, “Zu den Goldinschrift des Dareios I,” Zeitschrift für Assyrologie und verwandete Gebiete 37 (1937): 291–94.

Ernst Schwentner, “Zu der neuen Darius-Inschrift aus Hamadan,” Zeitschrift für Indologie und Iranistik 6 (1928): 171–173.

Carl Darling Buck, “A New Darius Inscription,” Language 3 (1927): 1–5.

Ernst Herzfeld, A New Inscription of Darius from Hamadan, Memoirs of the Archaeological Survey of India, no. 34 (Calcutta: Central Publication Branch, Government of India, 1928), 1–2.

Ronald G. Kent, “The Recently Published Old Persian Inscriptions,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 51 (1931): 189–240.

John P. Barden, “Xerxes a Doughty Warrior until he met the Greeks, Orientalists Find,” The University of Chicago Magazine, February 1936, 23–25.

Ernst Herzfeld, Altpersische Inschriften, Enter Erganzungsband zu den Archaeologischen Mitteilungen aus Iran (Berlin: D. Reimer, 1938), Inschr. n. 6 and Tafel 6.

Sukumar Sen, Old Persian Inscriptions of the Achaemenian Emperors (Calcutta: Univ. of Calcutta), 1941.

Ronald G. Kent, “The Oldest Old Persian Inscriptions,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 66 (1946): 206–12.

Arthur Upham Pope, “Recently Found Treasures of One of the World’s First and Greatest Empires: Achaemenid Gold Objects,” Illustrated London News 17 (July 1948): 58–59.

Ronald G. Kent, Old Persian: grammar, texts, lexicon, American Oriental series, vol. 33 (2nd ed.; New Haven, 1953), 9, 11–12, 107, 109, 111, 113–14, 116, 136f., 147, 155, 216.

Herbert H. Paper, “An Old Persian Text of Darius II (D2Ha),” Journal of the American Oriental Society 72 (1952): 169–70.

Ethel S. Drower, The Mandaeans of Iraq and Iran: Their Cults, Customs, Magic, Legends, and Folklore (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1962), pp. 22–23, 132.

ARABIA.

David Diringer, The Alphabet, 1:212–13.

The West

GREECE.

Pausanias, Descriptio Graecae 4. 26, 6–8.

Plutarchus, Life of Alexander 17.4–5.

De genio Socratis 577 E-F.

James Westfall Thompson, Ancient Libraries (Berkeley: Univ. of Calif. Press, 1940), pp. 51–52.

L. H. Jeffery, The Local Stripes of Archaic Greece (Oxford: Clarendon, 1961), pp. 6, 17, 50–58, 59, 62–65; and plates 3, 6, 11, 14, 15, 17, 22, 23, 26, 27, 31, 34, 36, 40, 41–46, 49–52, 54.

Jeno Platthy, Sources on the Earliest Greek Libraries; With the Testimonia (Amsterdam: Adolf M. Hakkert, 1968), pp. 76–79. Chapter 6, “Background of Literacy: Writing on Metal, etc. Evidence of the Language,” pp. 76–93, should be read in its entirety.

C. H. Roberts, “The Greek Papyri,” in S. R. K. Glanville, ed., The Legacy of Egypt (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1942), 281.

E. S. Roberts, An Introduction to Greek Epigraphy, Part 1: Error Inscriptions and the Greek Alphabet (Cambridge: Univ. Press, 1887), pp. 255–56, 357–60. Many metallic documents are cited herein.

C. Brixhe, “Une tabletta de juge d’origine probablement pamphylienne,” Bulletin de Correspondence Hellénique 90 (1966): 653–63.

J. J. Clère, “Deux nouvelles plaques de fondation bilingues de Ptolémée IV Philopator,” Zeitschrift für Ägyptische Sprache 90 (1963): 16–22.

J. Kroll, “Dikasts’ Pinakia from the Fauvel Collection,” Bulletin de Correspondence Hellénique 91 (1967): 379–96. Also his “The ‘Paris Forger’ of Dikasts’ Pinakia,” ibid., 397–400.

R. Merkelbach, “Epigraphische Miszellen,” Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 1 (1967): 77–80. Pt. 1: “Der Weg nach rechts (Goldplattchen von Petelia).”

Arthur J. Evans, Scripta Minoa; The Written Documents of Minoan Crete (Oxford: Clarendon, 1909), 1:106–8.

Orpheus. Hymni. Lamellae avrea orphicae. Edidit commentario instruxit Alexander Olivieri. Bonn, A. Marcus und E. Weber’s Verlag, 1915.

J. S. Morrison, “Parmenides and Er,” Journal of Hellenic Studies 75 (1955): 66.

M. T. Rostovtzeff, Mystic Italy (New York: Holt, 1927), p. 36–37, 34, 74.

W. K. C. Guthrie, Orpheus and Greek Religion; A Study of the Orphic Movement (London: Methuen 1935), pp. 171–182.

Jane Ellen Harrison, Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion (3rd ed; Cambridge, Univ. Press, 1922), chap. 11, “Orphic Eschatology,” and Gilbert Murray’s “Critical Appendix on the Orphic Tablets” at the end of the book. Also reprinted by Meridian Books, 1959.

Helen McClees, “Inscriptions in the Classical Collection,” Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art 19 (1924): 166–68.

Leslie Shear, “The Latter Part of the Agora Campaign of 1933,” American Journal of Archaeology 37 (1933): 540–48. Similar report in Hesperia 4 (1935): 325.

Stanley Casson, “Early Greek Inscriptions on Metal: Some Notes,” American Journal of Archaelogy 39 (1935): 510–517.

G. W. Eiderkin, “An Athenian Maledictory Inscription on Lead,” Hesperia 5 (1936): 43–49.

———, “Two Curse Inscriptions,” Hesperia 6 (1937): 382–95.

Eugene Vanderpool, “An Athenian Dikast’s Ticket,” American Journal of Archaeology 36 (1932): 293–94.

Sterling Dow, “Dikasts’ Bronze Pinakia,” Bulletin de Correspondance Hellénique 87 (1963): 653–87.

ITALY.

David Diringer, The Alphabet, 1:386–87, 394.

James Whitney Poultney, The Bronze Tables of Iguvium, philological monographs published by the American Philological Association, no. 18 (Baltimore: American Philological Association, 1959), passim, esp. pp. 1, 9–12, 22, 24.

Ulrich Schmoll, “Die hebräische Inschrift des Goldplättchens von Comiso,” Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenländischen Gesellschaft 113 (1963): 512–14.

Ned Nabers, “Prayers or Curses? Some Lead Tabellae from Morgantina,” American Journal of Archaeology 69 (1965): 171–72.

Helen McClees, “A Military Diploma of Trajan,” American Journal of Archaeology 30 (1926): 418–21.

D. Atkinson, “A New Roman Governor of Provincia Britannia,” Classical Review 42 (1928): 11–14.

A. D. Cummings, W. R. Chalmers, and H. B. Mattingly, “A Roman Mining Document,” Mine and Quarry Engineering, August 1956, 339–42.

E. C. Clark, History of Roman Private Law, Part I: Sources (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1906), pp. 21, 24, 25.

Rome. Laws, statutes, etc., Roman Laws and Charters, translated with introduction and notes by E. G. Hardy (Oxford: Clarendon, 1912), pp. 1, 35, 102, 104, 110–11, 136.

Fritz Schultz, History of Roman Legal Science (Oxford: Clarendon, 1946), pp. 87–88.

M. W. Frederiksen, “The Republican Municipal Laws: Errors and Drafts,” Journal of Roman Studies 55 (1965): 183–98.

Giovanni Colonna, “The Sanctuary at Pyrgi in Etruria,” Archaeology 19 (1966): 11–23.

Massimo Pallottino, “New Etruscan Texts on Gold Found at Pyrgi,” Illustrated London News, 13 February 1965, 22–25.

A. J. Pfiffig, Uni-Hera-Astarte. Studien zu den Goldblechen von S. Several Pyrgi mit etruskischer und punischer Inschrift. (“Denkchriften d. Öst. Akad. d. Wiss.” 88, 2; Wien: Böhlau, 1965), passim.

J. Ruysschaert, “La lamelle de bronze apollinienne du Mediallier vatican (CIL VI 3721) et le chevalier Jéröme Odam (1681–1741),” Rendi-conti della Pontificia Accademia di Archeologia 37 (1964–65 [1966]): 325–36. Cf. M. Guarducci, “Sol invictus Agustus,” Rendiconti della Pontificia Accademia di Archeologia, 1957–58 and 1958–59, 161–69.

Miscellaneous

Karl Wessely, “Bericht über grieschische papyri in Paris und London,” Wiener Studien 8 (1886): 175–230.

D. Comparetti, “Laminetta argentea iscritti di Aidone (Sicilia),” Annuario della Scuola Archeologica di Atene e della missioni italiane in Oriente, 1914, 113–18.

———, “Tabelle testamentaire della colonie achee di Magna Grecie,” Annuario della Scuola Archeologica di Atene e delle Missione Italiane in Oriente, 1916, 219–226.

A. Oliverio, “Laminetta d’oro iscritta di Brindisi,” Rivista lndo-Greca-Italica di filologia, lingua, antichita, 1923, 215–217.

A. Zocco-Rosa, “La tavola di bronzo di Narbona,” Ann. Instit. stor. d. diritto tom., 1915, xiii–xiv.

F. M. Abel, “Deux inscriptions latines militaires,” Revue Biblique, 1924, 111–113.

G. Libertini, “Laminetta plumbea iscritta da S. Giovanni Galermo (Catania),” Rivista Indo-Greca-ltalica di filologia, lingua, antichita, 1927, no. 3–4, 105–109.

L. P. Kirwan, “Some Roman Mummy Tickets,” Annales du Service des Antiquites de l’Egypte 33 (1933): 54–58.

R. Thouvenot, “Tablette de bronze decouverte a Banasa,” Publ. Serv. des Antiquites du Maroc I 1 (1935): 47–54.

A. Piganiol, “La table de bronze de Falerio et la loi Mainilia Roscia Peducaea Alliena Fabia,” Comptes rendus de l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, 1939, 193–200.

F. K. Doerner, “Eine neue Fluchtafel,” Wiener Jahreshefte 32 (Beibl., 1940): 63–72.

A. d’Ors Perez-Peix, “Los bronces de El Rubio,” Emetics 9 (1941): 138–154.

W. Seston, “La table de bronze de Magliano et la réforme électorale d’Auguste,” Comptes rendus de l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, 1950., 105–11. Also Bulletin de la Société nationale des Antiquaries de France, 1950–51, 80, 122.

F. de Visscher, “La table de bronze de Magliano,” Bulletin de la classe des Lettres de l’Académie royale de Belgique 35 (1949): 190–99. Also Comptes rendus de l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, 1951, 204–13; 1952, 262.

R. Noll, “Zu den Silbervotiven aus dem Dolichenusfund von Mauer a.d. Url,” Jahreschefte des Oesterrichischen Archäolgischen lnstituts in Wein 38 (Beibl., 1950): 125–46.

A. d’Ors, “Sobre la lex metalli Vipascenis II,” Jura 2 (1951): 127–33.

A. Piganiol, “Sur la nouvelle table de bronze de Torente,” Comptes rendus de l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, 1951, 58–63.

L. Robert, “Plaques de bronze bas empire en Tunisie et en Cilicie,” Hellenica 3 (1946): 170–72.

R. Etienne, “Une inscription sur bronze découverte à Volubilis (Maroc),” Comptes rendus de l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, 1954, 126–29. Also Latomus 14 (1955): 241–61.

S. Ferri, “San Vito di Luzzi (Cosenza). Frammenti di laminette auree inscritte,” Notizie degli Scavi di Antichità, ser. 8ª, 11 (1957): 181–83.

T. Nagy, “The Military Diploma of Albertfalva,” Acta Archaeologica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 7 (1956): 17–71.

H. Rolland, “Inscription sur bronze de Thoard (Basses-Alpes),” Gallia 18 (1960): 103–9.

H. Nesselhauf, “Zwei Bronzeurkunden aus Munigua,” Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts (Abteilung Madrid) 1 (1960): 142–54.

T. N. Knipovic, “A propos d’une inscription sur plaque de plomb publiée par G. Klaffenbach,” Vestnik Dreunej Istorii 83 (1963): 71–74.

C. Vatin, “Le bronze Pappadakis, étude d’une loi coloniale,” Bull. de Corr. Hell. 87 (1963): 1–19.

G. Manganaro, “Tre tavole di bronze con decreti di proxenia del Museo di Napoli e il problema dei proagore in Sicilia,” Kokalos 9 (1963): 205–20.

M. T. Couilloud, “Deux tablettes d’imprécation,” Bulletin de Correspondante Hellénique 91 (1967): 513–17.

Heikki Solin, Eine neue Fluchtafel aus Ostia (Helsinki: Societas Scientiarum Fennica, 1968), passim.

A. Audollent, Defixionum tabellae . . . (Luteciae Parisiorum: A Fontemoing, 1904), passim.