Katà tèn stélen. Listmaking for Greek Naval Inscriptions between the 2nd and the 1st millennium BCE

This paper explores list-making in ancient Greece through two case studies dealing with naval matters: the Linear B ‘rowers’ tablets’ from Pylos and the Naval Inventories from Classical Athens. Adopting a theoretical approach that analyzes lists and catalogs as an autonomous textual genre, we argue that the structure of the lists itself, displaying different ways of organizing and processing knowledge, reflects the organization of the administrative practices and their changing interests over time. Both 2nd-and 1st-millennium lists adopt a space-based criterion, however, while the Pylian tablets combine this with a social hierarchy-based criterion, the Athenian inventories replace it over time with a time-based one. This diachronic process runs in parallel with the professionalization of Athenian record-keepers, which brings them closer to the way of working of the scribes of Linear B. Finally, unlike Linear B tablets, Athenian naval inventories combined administrative utility with symbolic and collective value, materializing the fleet moored at Piraeus on monumental stelai that served as emblems of public memory.