ABSTRACT
The archaeologist meets the written word also in graffiti or maker's names and stamps on pottery or other artifacts. Archaeological data are of necessity about the individual and the particular: the study of a building here, a coin-hoard there, a group of pottery or artifacts from somewhere else. Historians and archaeologists use their material in different ways even within the normal confines of their own disciplines. Archaeology and history combine in the Roman world in descriptions by Roman writers of places, buildings, or objects which are still identifiable today. Some areas of knowledge about aspects of the Roman Empire which have a considerable bearing on our historical interpretation have been built up by this kind of careful construction. Conclusions are derived from observed data in a quasi-scientific fashion, relying for dating on a complex network of associations with other material, and for events on the interpretation of the traces in the ground.
