Details

LOT 248506

Roman Wooden Tablet with Testamentary Dispositions..

4TH CENTURY A.D.

5 1/4 x 5 1/2 in. (24.97 grams, 13.5 x 14 cm).

A square tablet of testamentary dispositions with writing on eleven horizontal rows and witness names in 10 vertical rows. [No Reserve]

Provenance

Acquired by Albert Sfez in the early 1950s.
Formerly the property of Monsieur Alain Sfez, a Belgium collector; acquired by gift from his father Albert Sfez, in 1965.
Acquired by a London dealer in 1973.
From an important London collection since 1975; thence by descent.

Literature

See Bowman, A.K., Life and letters on the Roman frontier: Vindolanda and its people, London, 1994, for discussion of the uses of Roman writing tablets; Rothenhoefer, P., Neue römische Rechtsdokumente aus dem Byzacena-Archiv / New Roman Legal Documents from the Byzacena Archive, (forthcoming).

Footnotes

Wax tablets written in Greek or Latin, were used by Romans as account registers (codices accepti et expensi); for transactions (for example, the tablets of the banker Lucius Caecilius Iucundus found in Pompeii); for lists of goods, inventories, and notes to be kept and archived; for Roman magistrates to annotate the salient events of their bureaucratical activities; for writing letters; for drawing up legal texts of various kinds: legacies, declarations of births and citizenship, reports of trials and diplomata militaria; and especially testaments in private civil law.