The research group Legal Documents in Ancient Societies aims to investigate the legal and administrative systems in a variety of societies of the ancient world through a document-based approach, crossing traditional disciplinary boundaries and providing a locus for scholars who work in different but contiguous fields to discuss and compare the results of their individual research. The fourth meeting of the group was held at the University of Trieste on 30 September-1 October 2011 and focused on the study of archives and archival records and the different ways they interlocked with, and were functional to, the workings of the ancient administrative, and political, systems.- This book, part of a series aiming to investigate the legal systems of ancient societies through a document-based, comparative approach, focuses on the study of archives and archival records and their interplay with the workings of administrative and political systems. The papers are arranged in four sections dealing with the Ancient Near East, Classical Greece, the Persian Tradition and the Hellenistic World, and the Roman Empire. The themes touched upon chronologically span from the early second millennium B.C. to the late Roman Empire and geographically range from Mesopotamia to the Western Mediterranean. The archives considered, public and private, are conspicuous for their variety and reflect diverse archival concepts and traditions but a number of common patterns also emerge in respect to their physical organization, to the classification of texts, the function of record-keeping and the role of seals. We are entitled to speak of a recurring ‘archival behaviour’. - Michele Faraguna is associate professor of Greek history at the University of Trieste. His work has focused on Greek political, administrative, economic, and legal history from the Archaic age to early Hellenism. He is the author of Atene nell’età di Alessandro. Problemi politici, economici, finanziari (1992) in addition to many articles. He edited Dynasthai didaskein. Studi in onore di Filippo Càssola (2006) and Nomos despotes. Law and Legal Procedures in Ancient Greek Society (2007). He is a member of the Editorial board of the Encyclopedia of Ancient History (2013). He is currently working, together with Laura Boffo, on a book on public archives in the Greek cities.