Details

LOT 248473

Roman Wooden Wax Tablet Fragment Written in Greek

CIRCA 3RD-4TH CENTURY A.D.

7 1/4 x 2 7/8 in. (45.45 grams, 18.6 x 7.2 cm).

Part of a wax tablet with two holes in the frame for fastening, Greek writing. [No Reserve]

Provenance

Property of a North London gentleman; previously in the Dean family collection since 1975.

Literature

Cf. for a similar tablet in Greek and Latin Wollman, V. ‘Eine Romische Wachstafel (tabula cerata) in der archaologischen Sammlung der ‘Batthyaneum’ Bibliothek, in an V (2010), nn. 9-10, pp.22-31.

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.