Details

LOT 248504

Roman Wooden Tablet with Testamentary Dispositions

4TH CENTURY A.D.

5 1/2 x 6 3/8 in. (27 grams, 14 x 16.1 cm).

A square tablet with Latin writing on twelve rows. [No Reserve]

Provenance

Acquired by Albert Sfez in the early 1950s.
Formerly the property of Monsieur Alain Sfez, a Belgian 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.