GRAFFITO, plural graffiti, the Italian word meaning "scrib bling" or "scratching" (graffiare, to scribble, Gr. 'ypa4etv), adopted by archaeologists as a general term for the casual writings, rude drawings and markings on ancient buildings, in distinction from the deliberate writings known as "inscriptions." These "graffiti," either scratched on stone or plaster by a sharp instru ment or, more rarely, written in red chalk or black charcoal, are found in great abundance, e.g., on the monuments of ancient Egypt. The best-known "graffiti" have been collected by R. Gar rucci (Graffiti di Pompei, Paris, 1856), and L. Correra ("Graffiti di Roma" in Bolletino della commissione municipale archaeo logica Rome, 1893; see also Corp. Ins. Lat. iv., Berlin, 1871) . The subject matter of these scribblings includes scrawls by boys, street idlers and the casual "tripper," of rude caricatures, election addresses and lines of poetry. Apparently private owners of property felt the nuisance of the defacement of their walls; at Rome near the Porta Portuensis was found an inscription begging people not to scribble (scaripliare) on the walls.
Graffiti are important to the palaeographer and the philologist as illustrating the forms and corruptions of the various alphabets and languages used by the people, and may guide the archaeol ogist to the date of the building; but they are chiefly valuable for the light they throw on the everyday life of the "man in the street" of the period, and for the intimate details of customs and institutions. The graffiti dealing with the gladiatorial shows at Pompeii are in this respect particularly noteworthy (see Gar rucci, op. cit., Pls. x.—xiv.; A. Mau, Pompeii in Leben and Kunst, 2nd ed., ch. xxx.). In 1866 in the Trastevere quarter of Rome was discovered the guard-house (excubitorium) of the sev enth cohort of the city police (vigiles), the walls being covered by the scribblings of the guards (W. Henzen, "L' Escubitorio della Settima coorte dei Vigili" in Boll. Inst., 1867, and Annali Inst., 1874; see also R. Lanciani, Ancient Rome in the Light of Recent Discoveries, 23o, and Ruins and Excavations of Ancient Rome, The most famous graffito is that generally accepted as representing a caricature of Christ upon the cross, found on the walls of the Domus Gelotiana on the Palatine in 1857, and now preserved in the Kircherian Museum of the Colle gio Romano. (See Ferd. Becker, Das Spottcrucifix der romischen Kaiserpalaste, Breslau, 1866; F. X. Kraus, Das Spottcrucifix vom Palatin, Freiburg in Breisgau, 1872; and Visconti and Lanciani, Guida del Palatino.)