In terms of writing on the socio-economic histories of early Ptolemaic Egypt, the papyrus archive of Zenon (263–229 BCE) – the largest to have survived from Ancient Egypt – is an exceptionally rich source of information. The Zenon papyri offer valuable insights into the running of the Ptolemaic empire, but also what it was like to live and work under Ptolemaios II and Ptolemaios III. By using network science, the relational and attribute data retrieved from the ancient texts can be modeled and analyzed in the form of networks. As network researchers, we intuitively know that how we conceptualize and build the datasets used for formal network analysis affects the models and analysis that follow. Still, we rarely have time to carefully check how, and to what extent the decisions made as we design our networks and collect our data impact the models and affect the measures applied. This article presents a test case exploring the implications of choosing to either include or exclude unnamed persons and collective actors when retrieving network data from selected Zenon papyri. After introducing the archive, samples and networks under study, the author measured and compared bipartite (co-attestation) and monopartite (interpersonal) networks with and without nodes representing unnamed persons and groups. The results of this study reveal that the nodes added have only a minor impact on the network structure, suggesting that the general traits of the sample (and by extension the archive as a whole) are captured regardless of their presence or absence. However, it also demonstrates how – especially for the interpersonal network approach – choosing to integrate impersonal and collective actors and their relationships adds to the model’s value as qualitative network research. The findings provide useful insights that can help us to better predict the relevance of tediously recording such actors and their relations when asking relational questions of historical networks.
Lena Tambs (Fri,) studied this question.