Page 52 - Manual of Roman Everyday Writing Volume 2: Writing Equipment

52| MANUAL OF ROMAN EVERYDAY WRITING
some cases, writing on the rim of tablets (Speidel 1996, 17) suggests
that they were stored together with others, for example on a pile,
with the label making it easier to find the document needed.
When the tablets contained an important document, for example a
contract, they could be sealed (Speidel 1996, 22–23). To this end,
a strip was carved out down the middle of the back of one of the
tablets to receive the seals. The names of the witnesses were written
in ink on either side of the seals. The seals protected the original
text (scriptura interior) but a copy was written on another part
of the diptych/triptych which could be read at any time (scriptura
exterior). It is unclear to what extent seal boxes were used to seal
wax tablets, if at all.
Fig. 31: Schematic reconstructions of a diptychon used as a
letter (left) and of a sealed triptychon, e.g. a contract (right).
From Tomlin 2016, 22 fig. 14; 24 fig. 17 right. © MOLA.
VOLUME 2: WRITING EQUIMENT | 53
Wax tablets were used all over the empire but, as is the case with
leaf tablets, they are only preserved under specific circumstances
(Hartmann 2015). They are sturdier than leaf tablets and preserved
more widely but may in fact have been used less commonly. Important
find spots represent the conditions required for preservation. In
Vindonissa (Switzerland), more than 600 tablets dating to 30–101
CE were found in a rubbish dump outside the legionary camp,
which also yielded numerous styli (Speidel 1996). To date this
is the largest number of stylus tablets found at one site. In the
moist soil of London, more than 400 tablets were preserved and
now called the Bloomberg tablets after the excavation site. These
letters, legal documents, accounts etc. date roughly to the period
between 50–80 CE but include examples from the very beginning
of Roman rule in Britain (Tomlin 2016). Other large finds include
tablets from the Vesuvian sites, in particular the dossier of the
banker L. Caecilius Iucundus (153 tablets) and the documents of
the Sulpicii, around 350 tablets relating to the affairs of a bank in
Puteoli that were found in a villa near Murécine in a wicker basket
(Camodeca 1999). About 25 tablets containing mainly purchasing
contracts from the mid-2nd century CE survive from a group of
50 found in the 18th and 19th century in the ancient goldmines of
Alburnus Maior (Romania, CIL III p. 913–958; Pólay 1982). There
are also hundreds of examples from Vindolanda, dozens of which
have traces of writing which are currently being investigated.
Unlike leaf tablets, wax tablets found in the northwestern provinces
were usually imported from the circum-Alpine area as the analysis
of the wood they were made of shows (often silver fir, see Häussler
and Pearce 2007, 225). For the Bloomberg tablets it has however
been suggested that they were also made by recycling barrels and
casks (Tomlin 2016). One funerary inscription from Rome is thought
to be that of the only known producer of wax tablets, M. Caecilius
Hilarus, a pugillariarius (CIL VI 9841).
There seem to have been special leather-cases for tablets and
depictions show them being carried with a sort of sling.