People and Things on the Move: Tracking Paths With Social Network Analysis

Abstract The article presents an early test case of the author’s ongoing project, in which she utilises aspects of social network analysis (SNA) to study social and economic life under Ptolemaios II Philadelphos and Ptolemaios III Euergetes as reflected in the largest surviving private archive from Ancient Egypt, the so-called Zenon Archive. Spanning a limited period of some 35 years (263–229 BCE), the c. 1845 documents of this archive reveal a wealth of information about individuals living under various conditions in Egypt and beyond. Since several places and persons are attested across more than one document, relational and attribute data retrieved from them can be meaningfully conceptualised and modelled as 1-partite and k -partite networks. With a case study of texts predating or written while Zenon travelled and worked as the financial minister’s private agent in the Levant, the author demonstrates how formal methods of SNA can be used to map, visualise, and analyse 3-partite networks of people and places mentioned in ancient texts. Finally, she reflects on what doing so on a larger scale may teach us.