Page 44 - Manual of Roman Everyday Writing Volume 2: Writing Equipment

44| MANUAL OF ROMAN EVERYDAY WRITING
Brushholders or brushes are mainly identified through the context
in which they were found. For example two brushes were found
in the so-called painter’s grave in St-Médard-des-Prés (France)
with various vessels containing what was interpreted as paint,
tools and other objects thought to have belonged to a painter when
excavated in the 19th century. In this case, the bristles seem to have
been attached to the metal shaft with a copper wire (Fünfschilling
2012, 180).
Further reading:
Fünfschilling 2012, 180–181; Humphreys 2021, 208-10; Raux and Widehen 2015
Selected ancient literary evidence:
The use of the brush is not mentioned in the context of writing in Latin
literature. Pliny the Elder (NH 9.148) mentions sponges used as brushes
and (NH 28.235) a remedy for burns made from the bristles of plasterers’
brushes; Cicero (Q. fr. 2.13.2) uses painting with a brush as a metaphor for
literary description.
VOLUME 2: WRITING EQUIMENT | 45
5.2 Main materials for writing on
and document types
Ink tablet/leaf tablet (tilia)
Roman ink tablets were made of wood using various techniques.
The best-known kind are wooden leaf tablets made of thin shavings
of wood (Bowman and Thomas 1983). Most are less than 3 mm
thick and roughly comparable in size to a modern postcard, but
some are quite a bit larger and can, for example, measure 25 cm in
length. Texts are sometimes written across, sometimes along, the
grain. They were often folded down the centre to form a diptych.
Fig. 25: Example of a leaf tablet used for a letter. From Bowman and
Thomas 1983, 38 fig. 6. © Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies.
Leaf tablets were the papyrus of the northwestern provinces. They
were used for ephemeral texts such as notes, drafts and private
administration but also for personal letters. In the case of letters,
the tablet was usually oriented horizontally and the text was written
along the grain in two columns. The tablet was folded and the address
of the recipient was written on the outside. Leaf tablets could also
be tied together to be read in a concertina format; some preserve