Tijdschrift voor Geschiedenis - Volume 131, Issue 1, 2018

In small scratches forgotten: New perspectives on graffiti from ancient Dura-Europos

We need to rethink graffiti: they are not just words and images but places and things. Using the graffiti of Dura-Europos on the Syrian Euphrates, this paper discusses some of the ways that the unofficial urban texts of antiquity can, when studied in their spatial context as material objects, reveal urban histories which rub against the grain of traditional studies. It explores the ways such seemingly ephemeral marks can be active agents within the urban environment in public, religious, and private contexts. I propose that graffiti can be defined by their immediacy and spatial contingency, and I contend that graffiti have the potential to give new perspectives on the ancient world: they are unmediated traces, stories of daily life, and through them it is possible to explore the ways in which the walls of the city could become active in people’s lives.

‘Brutus, are you sleeping?’ Political graffiti in Rome and Pompeii

This paper discusses the discrepancy between the literary sources that describe how in Rome graffiti criticized men of power and voiced political dissent, and the virtual lack of such surviving graffiti in smaller Roman towns, primarily Pompeii. Who wrote political graffiti and for what public? And how can we explain the ubiquity of political graffiti in Rome (according to the literary sources) and the absence of such graffiti from Pompeii? It is argued that this lack of graffiti does not reflect harmonious political relations in Pompeii but rather our difficulty in understanding ancient wordplay as well as the loss of nearly all texts written in charcoal and chalk.

Graffiti in medieval and early modern religious spaces: illicit or accepted practice? The case of the sacro monte at Varallo

Leaving one’s personal mark at a site of cult is an age-old practice attested in several religions, including Christianity from its earliest phases onwards. This article asks to what degree scratching graffiti into church walls was accepted behaviour in Western Europe during the medieval and early modern period. It seeks to complicate the view that disapproval of graffiti is a predominantly modern sentiment, by examining examples of both acceptance and resistance to graffiti at sacred sites. The attempts of Counter-Reformation bishop Carlo Bascapè (1550-1615) to root out what he perceived as impious vandalism at the sacro monte of Varallo in Northern Italy, combined with an analysis of the graffiti on the glass panes of the Ecce Homo chapel postdating Bascapè’s ban, together serve to suggest new directions for the study of the pre-modern significance of, and particularly resistance to, graffiti.

Graffiti in Venice. Texts, drawings, and posters in an early modern Italian city

This article examines how and why Venetians wrote on walls in the early modern period. From the Piazza San Marco area – the city’s political and religious heart – to the peripheral quarantine island and the ducal prisons, it analyses the locations and meaning of official and subversive writing practices, using archival, archaeological, and visual sources. By first examining accepted forms of writing and drawing on walls and pillars, the article aims to offer a broader contextualization of the graffiti and placards that attacked those in power. Social historians have shown that ordinary people were integral to pre-modern political dynamics. Yet Venice is still often portrayed as la Serenissima, an exceptionally serene city-state, an image constructed and projected during the late medieval and early modern period. A further investigation of subversive writings in the Venetian urban landscape can help to establish the political role of ordinary Venetians.

The epigraphic downfall of the city. The perishableness of public inscriptions in eighteenth-century Brussels

This article argues that epigraphic fluctuations took place in late medieval and early modern cities and towns, i.e. periods in which public urban space became increasingly or decreasingly inscribed with texts. The analysis of a collection of some fifty public inscriptions registered in Brussels around 1800 reveals that the anonymous authors reacted to the disappearance of various kinds of public texts from the urban space. It seems that Brussels witnessed an epigraphic decline at that time, which was probably caused by the blanchissement de la ville imposed by the city authorities. Instead of emphasizing the omnipresence of public inscriptions in late medieval and early modern urban space, as various historians have done, this article calls for more studies of the degree to which public inscriptions appeared and disappeared in earlier and later times and in other cities and towns, and the reasons for these changes.

Women on walls. Diversity in (post-)revolutionary Egyptian graffiti

The 25 January Revolution in Egypt and its aftermath saw a great rise in the amount of graffiti and street art. It was a medium to challenge official discourse and played a role in forming collective identities and claims. In the wake of Mubarak’s deposition, the immediately apparent heterogeneity within the Egyptian public sphere contrasted sharply with the myth of homogeneity that had been endorsed by the regime. The revolution opened up space for discussion on the political future of Egypt, but also on social issues. These debates are reflected in the graffiti of 2011-13. This article analyses the representation of women in graffiti during this time, exploring the multiplicity of ideas and images therein as a case study of the diversity within the Egyptian public sphere following the revolution and the openings for new narratives and debates that the revolution provided.

‘Vermaas, la vache qui rit’. Military graffiti as an archaeological and historical source in understanding military culture

This photo-essay presents two case studies in modern Dutch military graffiti and wall art in the late nineteenth-century fortress Fort benoorden Spaarndam and the early twentieth-century military barracks of the city of Ede. The case studies connect two related trends in archaeological and historical sciences, one being that archaeologists spend more and more effort in researching the contemporary past, the other that historians have developed a growing interest in material objects as a primary source. The case studies on graffiti demonstrate how military personnel related to their environment, to military institutions, in which the meaning of hierarchy is important, and how soldiers related to each other. Comparison between the studies shows how the focus of military pride shifted over time. This work leads to new insights and raises new questions on contemporary military culture that might not arise when using other sources.