| Writing-tablet | |
|---|---|
 Tablet 343: Letter from Octavius to Candidus concerning supplies of wheat, hides and sinews. | |
| Material | Wood |
| Size | Length: 182 mm (7.2 in) |
| Writing | Latin |
| Created | late 1st to early 2nd century AD |
| Period/culture | Romano-British |
| Place | Vindolanda |
| Present location | Room 49, British Museum, London |
| Registration | 1989,0602.74 |
The Vindolanda tablets are some of the oldest surviving handwritten documents in Britain (antedated by the Bloomberg tablets). They are a rich source of information about life on the northern frontier of Roman Britain.[1][2][3] Written on fragments of thin, postcard-sized wooden leaf-tablets with carbon-based ink, the tablets date to the 1st and 2nd centuries AD (roughly contemporary with Hadrian's Wall). Although similar records on papyrus were known from elsewhere in the Roman Empire, wooden tablets with ink text had not been recovered until 1973, when archaeologist Robin Birley, his attention being drawn by student excavator Keith Liddell, discovered some at the site of Vindolanda, a Roman fort in northern England.[1][4]
The documents record official military matters as well as personal messages to and from members of the garrison of Vindolanda, their families, and their slaves. Highlights of the tablets include an invitation to a birthday party held in about 100, which is perhaps the oldest surviving document written in Latin by a woman.
The excavated tablets are nearly all held at the British Museum, but arrangements have been made for some to be displayed at Vindolanda. As of 2023, more than 1,700 tablets have been discovered.[5]
- ^ a b "Our Top Ten British Treasures: The Vindolanda tablets". British Museum. 24 January 2011. Retrieved 8 February 2011.
- ^ Philip Howard (10 April 1974). "Lime-wood records of Agricola's soldiers". The Times. p. 20.
But the most significant discovery was a room littered with writing tablets. Of these eight or nine were the conventional stylus tablets, once covered with wax which was inscribed with a stylus. The rest are unique: very thin slivers of lime wood with writing on them in a carbon-based ink that can be deciphered by infrared photography. They are the first literary evidence from this period of British history, the equivalent of the records of the Roman Army found on papyrus in Egypt and Syria.
- ^ Bowman 2003, p. 12.
- ^ Susan M. Blackshaw (November 1974), "The Conservation of the Wooden Writing-Tablets from Vindolanda Roman Fort, Northumberland", Studies in Conservation, 19 (4), International Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works: 244–246, doi:10.2307/1505731, JSTOR 1505731
- ^ https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/galleries/roman-britain/vindolanda-tablets