Vindolanda Tablets Online Tablets Exhibition Reference Help

Writing instruments and equipment

Vindolanda and its setting

History

Forts and military life

People

Documents

Writing tablets - forms and technology

Writing instruments and equipment

The use and formats of writing tablets

Other documents at Vindolanda

Clerks, Latin and education

Reading the tablets

about this exhibition

Even where documents themselves do not survive, a variety of types of writing equipment provides indirect evidence for their existence. At Vindolanda for example the many styli excavated in the later Roman phases show that writing tablets continued to be used, although no tablet has survived archaeologically (since the anaerobic conditions did not apply). Images of readers and writers, as well as of writing equipment, tablets and scrolls, pen and stylus cases and satchels are common in Roman art. Artistic evidence also allows us to explore some of the situations in which documents were used and the individuals who used them, although the representations must be considered carefully. Depicting individuals with booklets of wax tablets for examples becomes a stereotypical feature of Roman funerary art, a potential symbol of culture or learning.
Drawing of styli found at Vindolanda

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Drawing of styli found at Vindolanda

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© Vindolanda Trust

A nib excavated at Vindolanda, fitted on its orginal wooden shaft. Several words could be written with each dip of the pen.

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A nib excavated at Vindolanda, fitted on its orginal wooden shaft. Several words could be written with each dip of the pen.

Image ownership:

© Vindolanda Trust

The writing instrument for the wax tablets was a metal rod, the stylus, pointed at one end and blunt at the other for smoothing the wax. Styli were normally plain but could sometimes be highly decorated, the decoration perhaps allowing a more secure grip. They could be made of metal, both bronze and iron (and occasionally precious metals), or bone. Over 200 styli were excavated from pre-Hadrianic Vindolanda, mostly iron. Iron objects are usually poorly preserved on archaeological sites but conditions at Vindolanda caused styli to be unusually well-preserved, leaving surface decoration clearly visible. Writing in ink could use reeds, quills or iron nibs. A small number of possible examples of the latter were found during the excavations. They would have been fitted on wooden shafts.

Glass, ceramic and metal inkwells have also been identified. The commonest type of inkwell was produced in the repertoire of samian vessels, a glossy red fineware imported from Gaul. Excess ink could be wiped from the pen into the runnel around the rim. The pot had an internal lip to prevent ink being spilled if the well was knocked over.

The lids of two seal boxes, with traces of the enamel with which they were decorated

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The lids of two seal boxes, with traces of the enamel with which they were decorated

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Portable Antiquities Scheme

A carnelian intaglio still set in its ring, cut with an image of an eagle with a standard on either side

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A carnelian intaglio still set in its ring, cut with an image of an eagle with a standard on either side

Image ownership:

Portable Antiquities Scheme

Intaglios, carved gems set in signet rings were pressed into the sealing wax on the tie cord for booklets of stylus tablets to identify the sealer. Moulded glass paste copies were an alternative to gems. Often bearing images of deities, they also had potential amuletic properties. For example a large group comes from the drains of the legionary bathhouse at Caerleon, Wales. Bathing soldiers had lost the rings that they wore to protect themselves from the malign spirits to which their naked state made them vulnerable. The seal boxes that protected the wax seal from damage, sometimes highly decorated, are also common archaeological finds.

Photo and drawing of front and side view of a bust of the goddess Minerva, the handle for a wax spatula

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Photo and drawing of front and side view of a bust of the goddess Minerva, the handle for a wax spatula

Image ownership:

Portable Antiquities Scheme

New types of writing-related tools continue to be identified by archaeologists. For example a tool with a handle in the form of a bust of the goddess Minerva has been recently identified as an unusual type of spatula for smoothing wax or spreading it onto tablets.

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