Investigating the Ancient World: Evidence, Sources and Methods
What you must understand
Every claim about antiquity rests on evidence, and evidence is never neutral. Distinguish primary sources (produced in the period: inscriptions, papyri, coins, pottery, buildings, skeletal remains) from secondary sources (later analysis). Classify by type (literary, documentary, archaeological, numismatic, epigraphic, iconographic) and by intention (deliberate monuments vs. accidental refuse such as middens or shipwrecks).
Know the methods: stratigraphy (lower layers generally older, but disturbance and intrusions must be checked), seriation, typology, dendrochronology, radiocarbon dating (calibrated, with a range not a point), prosopography, source criticism (who wrote, when, for whom, with what access), and corroboration across independent sources.
Traps examiners set
- Treating a literary anecdote as fact because it is vivid, or dismissing it entirely because it is biased. Bias affects reliability, not existence.
- Confusing absence of evidence with evidence of absence - survival is skewed toward durable materials, elites, dry climates and literate societies.
- Forgetting that a later copy (e.g. a medieval manuscript of a classical text) is not the original primary source; the textual tradition matters.
- Ignoring provenance: an object without recorded context loses much of its evidential value.
Rule of thumb
Ask three questions of any source: Who made it, for whom, and what would it not say? Then ask whether an independent source of a different type supports it.
Worked example
A coin portrait shows a ruler with an idealised youthful profile. Rule: coins are excellent for chronology, circulation, propaganda and titulature, but poor for physical likeness. Use it as evidence of self-presentation, not appearance, unless corroborated by sculpture with known context.