Back Home	Seminar on Records and Archives in Society
Course This Week Past Reedings History Archives Projects Students	The Athenian Cavalry Archives of the Fourth and Third Centuries B. C. Posner, Ernst.The Athenian Cavalry Archives of the Fourth and Third Centuries B. C. "American Archivist" 37 (October 1974): 579-82. In 1965 and 1969 archaeologists rescued two sets of records from the bottom of ancient wells, the Dipylon and Agora tablets, that provide information about ancient records keeping and how Athenian records administrators managed large files of information. Physical condition: 700 lead tablets of uneven size; rolled or folded; information often erased and replaced by more current information Cavalry organization: squadron; Athenian knights (not ordinary horsemen); horse maintenance Evidential value: tablets part of horse appraisal process; Dipylon tablets were not integral body of records; tablets originated over several years; information about appraisal and administrative methods; used as insurance register when cavalryman lost his horse; flexible filing system for easy access; used lead as durable writing medium; records keepers preserved noncurrent tablets typical administrative inertia.