SMC 50

Ancient cultures are studied through literary sources and artefacts, both of which are limited and often contradictory. Scholarly traditions often privilege one type of evidence over the other, depending on their research questions and the stories they want to tell. As a result, our understanding of the past may be shaped by bias. New archaeological discoveries force historians to rethink their views of the past. Missing evidence, though difficult to identify, can lead to educated guesses and a re-evaluation of previous ideas. However, over-reliance on a single dataset leads to the risk of overlooking important perspectives. While scholars have developed methods for dealing with insufficient data, methodological reflection on the subject is rare.
This volume presents case studies from ancient civilisations that explore how different types of missing evidence (e.g. missing, contradictory or neglected evidence) affect our perceptions of ancient cultures and shape the narratives we provide. Covering Southwest Asia, China, India, Greece, Etruria, early Christianity, Mesoamerica and Central Asian Buddhism, it invites scholars to compare the situation in their own fields to the state-of-the-art in others.

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FrontmatterI

ContentsV

Written Artefacts, Transmitted Literature and Missing Evidence: An Introduction1
Cécile Michel, Michael Friedrich, and Jorrit Kelder

ABSENCE OF EVIDENCE: LOST OR NEGLECTED

The Lost Libraries: An Archaeology of Maya Books13
Christophe Helmke and Kerry Hull

Missing Evidence and Clues to Evidence, a Dialectic Process: The Apostolic Tradition65
Alessandro Bausi

Reconstructing the Book of Zambasta: The Role of ‘Missing Evidence’95
Nicholas Sims-Williams

QUANTITY OF EVIDENCE: TOO LITTLE OR TOO MUCH

Identifying Missing Evidence in an Abundant Cuneiform Corpus119
Cécile Michel

Minding the Gap: The Administrative Documents of the Old Kingdom and the Wadi el-Jarf Archive147
Pierre Tallet

Some Methodological Reflections Concerning Ancient Chinese Manuscripts161
Michael Friedrich

QUALITY OF EVIDENCE. FRAGMENTARY OR CONTRADICTORY

Missing Evidence and Evidence Dismissed: Mycenaean Archaeology and Its Struggle with Contemporary Written Sources201
Jorrit Kelder

Direct and Indirect Evidence about Etruscans: Partial and Contradictory Views221
Dominique Briquel

IN LIEU OF A CONCLUSION

Missing, Lost, and Forgotten Sources: Some Thoughts on the Situation in Ancient India253
Oskar von Hinüber

Contributors

Index of Written Artefacts