Alphabetic Scribes in Hellenistic Uruk

Professional titles are scarcely used in socurces from Hellenistic Uruk as a means of identification. The fact that individuals bearing the title of alphabetic scribes feature so prominently in the corpus must therefore bear a special significance. In light of recent publications of new documents offering fresh evidence on the alphabetic scribes of the Hellenistic period, the author offers an updated survey of the topic, whose aim is to focus on the professional network and the economic and social dimension where the alphabetic scribes acted. After introducing the topic and examining the chronological distribution of the sources, the article surveys the different spellings of the term sēpiru; it then looks into the spatial dimension of the alphabetic scribes, examinining their roles in the contracts, the kind of properties they dealt with, the network of professionals with whom they interacted and the profile of women into whose families they married. It finally takes into consideration the careers of the alphabetic scribes, with an eye to the exceptional continuity of this professions, as well as to its collegiality. A propsopography of the sēpirus of Hellenistic Uruk concludes the paper.