The letter

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Established in 2008, the group “Legal Documents in Ancient Societies” aims to foster collaboration among scholars studying everyday documentation across various ancient cultures, including the Ancient Near East, Ancient Egypt, Greek and Hellenistic states, as well as the Roman and Islamic worlds. A primary method for achieving this goal is through annual meetings, each centered on a specific topic. The inaugural meeting, now documented in these proceedings, took place at the American Academy in Rome from September 28-30, 2008, and focused on the documentary uses of letters from the third millennium BCE to late Antiquity. Letters served as crucial tools for bridging distances, facilitating communication among colleagues, businesses, families, and friends, and enabling them to manage the actions of their representatives or share everyday concerns. In the examined societies, the letter format also became a standard for certain legal and administrative acts, notably the cheirographon, which originated in the Hellenistic period and evolved into the primary framework for legal documentation during the Byzantine period. The twelve papers included in this volume explore various uses and the evolution of the letter as a documentary genre, highlighting its significance as a resource for understanding ancient bureaucracy, state dynamics, economy, trade, social interactions, and law.