My thesis has two facets, the first being the creation of a catalogue of graffiti in the late antique east, c. 300-750 CE. The catalogue will draw from archaeological reports and other corpuses to create a detailed guide to graffiti from the period, including their location, date and a transcription.
The second facet of this thesis is the interpretation of this data, to construct an understanding of the sociological and cultural reasons for graffiti, what it represented for late antique communities. I will incorporate theory about modern graffiti to understand the motivations and social values ascribed to graffiti, and whether or not the attitudes towards, and uses of, graffiti varied throughout the east.