LOT 0149

Roman Reused Inked Wooden Wax Tablet Relating to Sheep and Clothing

4TH CENTURY A.D.

7 5/8 x 6 3/8 in. (50 grams, 19.5 x 16 cm).

The shallow recessed panel displaying seventeen lines of hand-inked cursive text; reverse bearing twenty lines of hand-inked cursive text with a shallow rectangular vertical recess which once held wax seals; pierced twice on the upper and lower edges for attachment. [No Reserve]

From an important London collection since 1975.

Rothenhoefer, P., Neue römische Rechtsdokumente aus dem Byzacena-Archiv / New Roman Legal Documents from the Byzacena Archive, (forthcoming).

See Thomas, J. D., Vindolanda: The Latin Writing Tablets, Britannia Monograph Series No 4, London, 1983, for examples of wooden tabulae re-used as writing surfaces; for examples of testamentary documents on wooden tablets that have survived, see FIRA III, p.47, for Anthony Silvanus from 142 AD, also see BGU VII 1695 for Safinnius Herminus; for another from Transfynydd, North Wales, see Arch. Camb. 150, pp.143-156.

Prof. Dr. Phil. Peter Rotenhoefer says: "The tablet is the second tabula of a testament consisting normally of three tablets (a tryptich). It contains in a highly formalistic legal language legacies for various persons (inter alia a Iulia) who receive certain items like e.g. sheep and clothes.
17 lines of cursive script on the first page, 20 lines on the rear."