SLaVEgents: Digital Prosopography of Enslaved Persons in Western Eurasia and North Africa (1000 BCE–300 CE)

SLaVEgents represents the first large-scale digital project to focus on the agency of enslaved persons in antiquity and explore how this group actively shaped the societies in which they lived. To facilitate an in-depth analysis of slave agency, SLaVEgents is building an open-access, interlinked digital prosopography that will provide a single point of entry for the study of all attested ancient slaves, freedpersons and possible slaves found in ancient sources from 1000 BCE to 300 AD. Based on and documenting sources across multiple ancient languages (Assyrian, Babylonian, Hebrew, Aramaic, Phoenician, Egyptian, Greek and Latin) alongside relevant archaeological data, SLaVEgents will research the multiple identities of enslaved persons; the networks and communities that they created or participated in; and the ways in which slave agency led to major political, social, economic and cultural changes in antiquity.