Page 32 - Manual of Roman Everyday Writing Volume 2: Writing Equipment

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5. Catalogue of writing equipment
5.1 Utensils for writing:
styli, pens and brushes

hen thinking of writing implements, the first thing that Stylus (stilus/graphium)
Wcomes to mind is what we write with and what we write on, Roman styli were mainly used to write on wax tablets but also for
e.g. pen and paper. But if we think further there are a number of other surfaces such as lead and wood. They were mostly made of
accessories needed, or useful, for writing, for example to help keep metal, with iron and copper-alloys being the most commonly used
equal distance between lines (ordination), to carry writing sets in materials. Early Roman styli are made of bone and they are not
or to prepare ink with. usually found after the 1st century CE (Schaltenbrand Obrecht 2012,
In the following catalogue the Roman equivalents of pen and paper 60–62, 65). Wooden styli are known from late Roman and Coptic
will be introduced in some detail. These include styli, pens and Egypt and must have existed in other places as well (Schaltenbrand
brushes and the main surfaces and materials used for handwriting Obrecht 2012, 53). There are also objects with a wooden shank and
such as papyrus and wood. Important accessories that are known a metal spiral nib frequently called ‘Vindolanda type’ pens, which
from written and iconographic evidence or that can be found on
Roman excavation sites are also described. The catalogue ends with
tools for which the evidence is scarce or ambiguous. These include
stones used to sharpen styli, pieces of lead used to draw lines to
write on, stones and sponges used as erasers, small objects used to
separate the ‘pages’ of bundles of writing tablets, etc. In addition
to these, and not discussed in the catalogue, there are many other
tools which can be associated with writing in some contexts but
that are not specifically writing equipment. These include utensils
that may have been used to mix ink and paint or to prepare wax,
such as stirrers, spoons and spoon-probes, certain spatulas, stone
palettes and small vessels.

For the relevant terminology in other languages commonly used
in research publications, please refer to the Glossary.

Fig. 16: Typology of Roman iron styli from Britain
after Manning 1985, 85, redrawn by A. Willi.