The study of ancient writing, though not an institutionalised field itself, has developed over the past two decades into a dynamic domain of inquiry across specialisms. The series aims to reflect and contribute to this ongoing interdisciplinary dialogue while challenging schematic views on writing in the ancient world. Written by a team of specialists, volumes in the series will be broadly accessible to students and scholars. Collectively, they offer a perspective on ancient writing that is:

• global, presenting the full diversity of forms and practices of writing in the ancient world—from the Near East to China, in northern Africa, the broader Mediterranean, and the Americas;
• detailed, presenting these traditions in their full temporal depth and internal diversity rather than en bloc, and making available the rich datasets and internal discussions that all too often remain confined to individual fields and specialisms; 
• and contextualised, presenting writing systems and practices of writing as meaningful expressions of societies and human ingenuity in their relevant social, cultural, and linguistic contexts.

Series Editor:

Andréas Stauder is professor of Egyptology at the École Pratique des Hautes Études-PSL, in Paris. His research focuses on the origins and early development of writing in Egypt and in comparative perspective, the visual aesthetics and semiotics of Egyptian hieroglyphic writing, the historical linguistics of the Egyptian-Coptic language, the poetics of ancient Egyptian literature, and Egyptian inscriptions in space. 

Contact: [email protected]

Editorial Board:

 Wolfgang Behr, University of Zürich

Silvia Ferrara, University of Bologna

Stephen Houston, Brown University

Philip Huyse, École Pratique des Hautes Études-PSL, Paris

Cale Johnson, Freie Universität, Berlin

David Lurie, Columbia University

Rachel Mairs, University of Reading 

Ingo Strauch, University of Lausanne