Extract

(τὰ δεμόσια γράμματα and variations; ἀρχεῖον is mainly Hellenistic). In Archaic Greece, documentation was minimal, laws being the most important public documents; lists of officials and agonistic victors (see agōnes) were evidently recorded (and later published), but the public inscriptions themselves were probably the ‘stone archives’ (see records and record-keeping). Temples were safe deposits from early on (e.g. *Heraclitus (1) deposited in a temple a copy of his own book), and might contain public inscriptions: hence they often came to house the archives of the city: e.g. the Athenian Metroon, also a shrine; archives of 2nd-cent bce*Paros. Documents were also kept separately by the officials concerned, or in their offices (on wooden tablets (pinakes), or whitened boards (leukōmata), or papyri), e.g. the Athenian cavalry archive (see hippeis § 2), the records of the *pōlētai (Ath.