I think most of the readings assigned address what you can get out of interpreting ancient graffiti by paying attention to context. I thought the reading on Mayan graffiti was especially interesting, because the graffiti were made by and for a contemporaneous audience. For one thing, Olton is definitely not making an unreasonable claim in arguing that Mayan graffiti is evidence for a conscious, transgressive community. I don’t think the repeated pattern of making the ruler smaller than the protector is an accident or a coincidence, especially when considering that there are art pieces depicting the ruler as much more authoritative and “royal.” While the ruler is barely even drawn, other details, like the repeated cross-hatching of the protector’s vertical support point to how the artist made his/her details a choice. It was also really interesting that these graffiti were created by and only accessible to the elite class, so it’s plausible that these sketches were a way of communicating dissent toward the ruler. Olton even goes on to say that maybe these images operated as a warning to the ruler from his privileged subjects.
There is a lot of historical information you can gain from ancient graffiti, because they serve as evidence of individual people’s lives. I think in this way you can gain a much more specific perspective on groups of people you otherwise wouldn’t think much of. The Graffiti in the Athenian Agora reading shows just how much you can learn from what seems to be insignificant sketches made by people during this time period. Like the Romans, they engaged in sexual or obscene conversation on the walls. You can also figure things out like how ancient Greeks spoke (casual speech revealed in an example), their backgrounds based on the letters used (slaves used pi instead of phi), the ways Greeks traded and stayed organized, and the importance of religion in their lives.