Page 28 - All About History - Issue 72-18
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ROMAN EMPIRE
Historical Treasures
VINDOLANDATABLETS
ANCIENT WAYS OF LIFE PRESERVED IN THE MUD NORTHUMBERLAND, 85-130 CE
t’s a miracle that we have these tablets at all hospital. We also know what some of the soldiers The first tablets were found at Vindolanda in
considering how thin and fragile they are. Found specialised in aside from war. 1973 and since then, digs have been turning up
during an excavation at the site of the Roman Virilus and Ario were veterinarians, several of the ancient documents,
Ifort of Vindolanda, today’s Northumberland, they while Lucius’s trade was shield making allowing us to create a better picture
were only preserved due to being buried in damp, and Atrectus was a brewer. We are also of what life was really like in a Roman
aerobic earth. Wafer thin, the small wooden slabs told about the opposing Celtic warriors “ ONE fort. When they are uncovered, their
are covered in a Latin scrawl detailing the daily and how the Romans looked down on preservation is of utmost importance
lives of soldiers who spent their days at Hadrian’s their weaponry and tactics. DETAILS A so they are placed in water to clean
Wall, the Roman Empire’s northernmost border. Not everything in the tablets is all them, then immersed in baths of methyl
The size of our postcards today, the Vindolanda business, though – one details a birthday BIRTHDAY alcohol and ether to dry them out and
tablets don’t look like much, but the details party being thrown while another sees make them easier to read. While they
they hold about ancient Roman daily life are a a soldier asking his brother for money. PARTY ” have been overtaken as the oldest
rarity. One of the 1,600-odd tablets details work We also know what people ate – over Roman writings found in Britain by
assignments – out of 343 men, 12 were making 46 different foods are mentioned some tablets that have been found in
shoes, 18 were building the bath-house and the throughout the tablets, including London, they are still among the earliest
rest were collecting rubble, plastering, assigned to venison, honey, spices and olives. Even ordinary texts produced in Roman Britain and hold a certain
the wagons, tending to the kilns or working in the soldiers could get hold of oysters and pepper. amount of significance on that merit alone.
It’s all Latin Measuring up
to me Onlythesizeofthepostcardswe
The Romans would use today, the Vindolanda tablets
usually write on and those found elsewhere in Britain
wax tablets so that don’tlooklikemuchwhenthey’re
they could erase dugup.They’realsoincredibly
their writing when flimsy at two to five millimetres
they were done with thick, and their age certainly doesn’t
it. These tablets help their fragile state.
are written in ink,
which has preserved
incredibly well,
meaningthatthese
documentswereat
one time considered
to be important to
the soldiers.
The ruins of Vindolanda,
where so many of these
tablets have been found,
can be visited today
Tied together The original paper
Littleholesorv-shapednotchesinthemost Mostofthetabletsaremadefromthebarkof
well-preserved tablets show where they were birchoreldertrees,butthisisn’talwaysthe
tied together to create longer documents. Over case.SomeoftheonesfoundatVindolanda
thepast2,000years,whateverwasusedtotie have been written on oak, which doesn’t
them together has disintegrated in the earth preserve so well in the damp ground and so it
butthat’stheleastofarchaeologists’worries. is trickier to uncover what is written on them.
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