Vindolanda tablets
Vindolanda tabletsDuring the 1970s and 1980s several hundred wooden writing-tablets were discovered at the Roman fort of Vindolanda near Hadrian's Wall (see wall of Hadrian); a further 400 turned up in 1993. Of the earlier finds, some were of the well-known stylus type, but the vast majority were made of thin, wooden leaves, written in ink with a pen. Only a handful of tablets of this type was previously known, and the concentration of such numbers at one site is unique. They date between c. AD 90 and 120, when the fort was occupied first by Cohors (cohort) I Tungrorum and later by Cohors IX Batavorum.
The Vindolanda material includes the largest group of Latin letters ever discovered. There are also literary fragments, shorthand texts, military reports, applications for leave, and accounts. The letters often bear on the official and private concerns of the officers, their families, and slaves, while the military...
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