Romano-British Writing Tablets

Funding: AHRB Research Grant (April 1999-March 2002)
Project Directors: Professor A K Bowman, Professor J D Thomas (University of Durham)
Project Staff: Dr J Pearce (Ph.D. Durham, 1999)

Of the former provinces of the Roman empire, Britain is perhaps the most prolific in producing new Latin documents. These comprise two main types. The first, well known from excavations at Vindolanda, close to Hadrian's Wall, includes wooden ink and stylus tablets, the second texts inscribed on thin sheets of metal, usually lead, commonly referred to as 'curse tablets'. Wooden tablets tend to survive only in waterlogged archaeological contexts, but lead tablets are less dependent on these particular preservation conditions and have been recovered both during archaeological excavation and as surface finds, especially in recent years through the use of metal detectors. A project based at the Centre for the Study of Ancient Documents (CSAD) aims to publish a corpus of these lead and wooden tablets as Roman Inscriptions of Britain volume IV (RIB IV). It will compile and re-edit known texts as well as publish recent discoveries. Preparation of the corpus will include the application of new techniques of digital image enhancement to these artefacts. These techniques are being developed in collaboration with the Faculty of Engineering Science at Oxford (see project entry below) and will allow significantly improved readings of texts, indeed sometimes the first readings of texts previously considered illegible.

The first phase of the project is funded by a three-year Research Grant from the Arts and Humanities Research Board (April 1999-March 2002) and has as its principal objectives the compilation of a complete photographic record of the Vindolanda ink tablets using a high resolution digital camera, to provide support to Professor Thomas and Professor Bowman for their work on a third and final volume of the corpus of ink writing tablets from Vindolanda (Tabulae Vindolandenses III), and to allow preliminary work to be undertaken on RIB IV. Dr John Pearce, who completed a Ph.D at Durham University, in May 1999, on funerary and burial practices in Roman Britain, has been appointed as Research Assistant to the project.

Digitisation of the ink tablets was completed during the summer of 2001. Preparation of Tabulae Vindolandenses III is now at an advanced stage. Preliminary work on RIB IV has so far comprised a literature search and a survey of museum and archaeological unit collections and appeals for information to metal detectorists. Responses to the survey have been very positive and have allowed a register of known wood and metal writing tablets to be compiled.

Preliminary work has also been undertaken on the design of a website consisting of texts and images of the Vindolanda writing-tablets and supporting material. Implementation of the design has been adopted as a project for 2001/2002 by the Computing Centre's Humanities Computing Development Team and forms part of the Centre's new Script, Image and the Culture of Writing in the Ancient World programme funded by the Mellon Foundation (for which see the separate entry below).

Tab. Vindol. II 301 (letter from Severus to Candidus)

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