Intro -- Contents -- Introduction: Communication and Materiality-Communicative Strategies of Ruling Elites from 3000 BCE through 1500 CE -- Spreading the Royal Word: The (Im)Materiality of Communication in Early Mesopotamia -- Linear B Administration: The Communicative Aspects of Written Media and the Organisation of the Mycenaean Bureaucracy -- Materiality and Reality of the Communication of Divine Will in the Sargonid Period -- utā pavastāyā utā carmā grftam āha-Written on Clay and Parchment: Old Persian Writing and Allography in Iranian -- Charters, Pitchforks, and Green Seals. Written Documents between Text and Materiality in late Medieval Revolts -- The Textile Performance of the Written Word: Islamic Robes of Honour (khilaʻ) -- Postscript -- Notes on Contributors.