Maintenance

Abstract This essay surveys the surviving evidence for the maintenance of books (papyrus rolls) from the Mediterranean world under Roman rule. After a discussion of an especially well-documented case of damage and repair of papyrus rolls in an archive in Roman Egypt, the essay turns to the steps taken during the manufacture of papyrus rolls to prevent such damage from occurring and the options for mending rolls when such damage occurred. This examination involves literary, documentary, and iconographic evidence that illustrates the storage, transportation, use, and repair of books. The essay closes with an investigation of what we can know about the people, both enslaved and free, who performed these tasks of maintenance. The surviving textual and material evidence that lets us see the results of this labor only rarely allows us to glimpse the people who carried out this work.