Witnesses in Theban Property Contracts: a practical application of Social Network Analysis

Inspired by Padgett and Ansell’s seminal paper on the Medici: ‘Robust Action and the Rise of the Medici 1400-1434’, we aim to explore different types of relationships attested in the Theban sources and compare the resulting networks.

There has been a substantial amount of research undertaken into the Theban scribes and contracting parties, but witnesses have often been left out. We aim to tackle the issue of who these witnesses were, what status and connections they had in the Theban community and how they were chosen. Based on historical research of scribal traditions in the Ancient Near East, we move on from solely focusing on the interpersonal links between the three main actors of the Demotic contracts: the scribe, the two contracting parties and the witnesses, and are now including information that is often overlooked, in particular the information on neighbours of the contracting parties and other actors often overlooked.

While trying to deal with the specific difficulties of historical network analysis, such as the consideration of time in relationships and the directionality of relations in contracts and other written historical documents, we aim to study the neighbourhood networks, scribal networks and family networks individually and as a whole. The similarities and discrepancies should tell us something more on the choice of witnesses, functioning of the scribal and, in extension, the whole of the Theban community.