Transcript presentation

The Vindolanda Tablets
Susannah Haury
HIST 360: Roman Britain
February 14, 2017
What were they?
 Fragments
of thin, postcard-sized wooden leaf
tablets with carbon-based ink
 Were
the oldest surviving handwritten documents
in Britain at the time of their discovery
 About life
Britain
on the northern frontier of Roman
When were they created?
 Late
First and early Second Centuries CE, mostly
92-103 CE
 First
known surviving examples of the use of ink
letters in the Roman period
Where were they located?
 At
the Vindolanda fort in northern Britain
 Near
Hadrian’s Wall
 Fort
occupied by Roman garrisons from late c1 CE
to early c4 CE
 Tablets
show self-sufficiency of the fort as well as
its connections with the rest of Britain and with the
continent
How were they found?
 Late
1960s: archaeology begins at the fort
 1972:
big archaeological deposit found
 1973:
first writing tablet found
 Over
1000 tablets found since, dating from
c. 85 – 130 CE
 Also
etc.
other artifacts—leather, textiles, coins,
Where are they now?
Mostly
in the British Museum
Vindolanda Museum
Why do we care?
 Extremely rare—both for
 Archaeology and
age and for type
interpretation
 Content—military life,
running a fort, social lives,
slavery, diversity, racism
 “nenu…[.]n.
Brittones nimium multi . equites gladis
. non utuntur equites . nec resident Brittunculi . ut .
iaculos mittant”
Discussion Question
 What
(and how much) can Tablet 164 tell us
about the occupants of Vindolanda and their
relationship to the native Britons?
 “…the Britons are unprotected by armor.
There are very many cavalry. The cavalry do
not use swords nor do the wretched Britons
mount in order to throw javelins.”
Bibliography

Birley, Robin. Vindolanda. Chesterholme: Roman Army Museum Publications,
2005

Bowman, Alan K. Life and Letters on the Roman Frontier. London: British
Museum Press, 1994.

Hemelrijk, Emily, ed. Women and the Roman City in the Latin West. Boston: Brill,
2013.

Ireland, S. Roman Britain: A Sourcebook. London: Routledge, 2008.

Mattingly, David. An Imperial Possession New York: Penguin Books, 2006.

http://vindolanda.csad.ox.ac.uk/index.shtml “Vindolanda Tablets Online”
Accessed February 11, 2017.