Roman wooden tablets are the earliest handwritten documents ever found in Britain
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Buried under 20ft of mud
Buried under 20ft of mud for nearly 2,000 years, these simple Roman wooden tablets are the earliest handwritten documents ever found in Britain.
Among more than 400 unearthed by archaeologists, they include the first known reference to London – and the first IOU.
They were found beneath a pub in the City during work on financial news company Bloomberg’s new European headquarters near Bank Tube station.
Most of the documents, written in wax on a folding wooden frame, date from between AD55 and 85. They were dumped by the Romans on the banks of the River Walbrook. There, the mud prevented air getting to the wood, stopping it from rotting.
Sophie Jackson, archaeologist and director at Museum of London Archaeology, said yesterday: ‘The mud of the river was like the lava at Pompeii, preserving the best collection of wax tablets ever found in Britain.’
The tablets, made from wood recycled from wine casks imported from the Continent, give a remarkable picture of a Roman London teeming with businessmen, lawyers, tradesmen and slaves. Within a few years of being established, the city was already a whirring mix of commerce, eating, socialising and fashion. Among the documents are wills, disputes over debts and references to heavy beer-drinking.
They also provide an insight into the Roman postal system. Early Londoners wrote letters in soot-blackened beeswax with an iron stylus, or pen-shaped needle.
Once the recipient read the letter, he smoothed the surface with a heated spatula, and wrote another letter in the wax, often carving so deeply he scratched the wooden mount, so although none of the wax remains today, inscriptions can still be read in the wood.
The writer carved the address into the outer, wooden surface of the folding boxes, tied it up and sent his slave to deliver it. Addresses were simpler then, with no house numbers, just the names of neighbours. One address reads: ‘You will give this to Junius the cooper, opposite Catullus’s house.’
The oldest tablet which can be dated exactly is a letter between two London businessmen, acknowledging a debt – then, as now, the city revolved around money.
References to a consul of the time mean it can be dated to the year we now call AD57 – only nine years after Londinium was founded by the invading Romans.
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Among more than 400 unearthed by archaeologists, they include the first known reference to London – and the first IOU.
They were found beneath a pub in the City during work on financial news company Bloomberg’s new European headquarters near Bank Tube station.
Most of the documents, written in wax on a folding wooden frame, date from between AD55 and 85. They were dumped by the Romans on the banks of the River Walbrook. There, the mud prevented air getting to the wood, stopping it from rotting.
Sophie Jackson, archaeologist and director at Museum of London Archaeology, said yesterday: ‘The mud of the river was like the lava at Pompeii, preserving the best collection of wax tablets ever found in Britain.’
The tablets, made from wood recycled from wine casks imported from the Continent, give a remarkable picture of a Roman London teeming with businessmen, lawyers, tradesmen and slaves. Within a few years of being established, the city was already a whirring mix of commerce, eating, socialising and fashion. Among the documents are wills, disputes over debts and references to heavy beer-drinking.
They also provide an insight into the Roman postal system. Early Londoners wrote letters in soot-blackened beeswax with an iron stylus, or pen-shaped needle.
Once the recipient read the letter, he smoothed the surface with a heated spatula, and wrote another letter in the wax, often carving so deeply he scratched the wooden mount, so although none of the wax remains today, inscriptions can still be read in the wood.
The writer carved the address into the outer, wooden surface of the folding boxes, tied it up and sent his slave to deliver it. Addresses were simpler then, with no house numbers, just the names of neighbours. One address reads: ‘You will give this to Junius the cooper, opposite Catullus’s house.’
The oldest tablet which can be dated exactly is a letter between two London businessmen, acknowledging a debt – then, as now, the city revolved around money.
References to a consul of the time mean it can be dated to the year we now call AD57 – only nine years after Londinium was founded by the invading Romans.
Saya membuat video ini dengan Pembuat Rangkai Slide YouTube (upload)
8 سال پیش
در تاریخ 1395/03/13 منتشر شده
است.
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