What do the Vindolanda tablets say?

What do the Vindolanda tablets say?

The documents record official military matters as well as personal messages to and from members of the garrison of Vindolanda, their families, and their slaves.

What do the Vindolanda tablets contain?

The writers of the Vindolanda documents include soldiers, officers and their wives and families who were garrisoned at Vindolanda, as well as merchants, enslaved people, and correspondents at many different cities and forts throughout the vast Roman empire, including Rome, Antioch, Athens, Carlisle, and London.

How many Vindolanda letters were found?

A cache of 25 Roman letters has been found at Vindolanda, the fort below Hadrian’s Wall where the most famous documents from the Roman world were discovered in 1992, first-person accounts of cold feet, beer running short, and jolly birthday parties at the northernmost edge of the empire.

Why is Vindolanda important?

Why is Vindolanda important? Firstly, because of how well the site is preserved, it gives us an insight into what life was like for the people (the Roman soldiers, the Celtic tribes, the businessmen and the families) who inhabited this fort and the areas around it.

Who found the Vindolanda tablets?

Dr Robin Birley
Dr Robin Birley, who also discovered tablets at Vindolanda in 1970s and 1980s, added: ‘There is nothing more exciting than reading these personal messages from the distant past. ‘ For more information on Vindolanda, its tablets, and the current excavation, visit

How do you read Roman writing?

Roman numerals use a numbering technique based on seven letters: I, V, X, L, C, D and M. The symbol I represents a value of 1; V represents 5; X represents 10; L represents 50; C represents 100; D represents 500 and M represents 1000.

When was Vindolanda discovered?

In 1973 the first of the famous Vindolanda writing tablets were found by Robin Birley and his team as well as many thousands of well-preserved wooden and leather artefacts and the Trust built up enough resources to purchase the once Hedley and Birley nearby family home, Chesterholm cottage, and turn it into a museum.

Why is Vindolanda called Vindolanda?

Vindolanda means white lawns or white fields. We know that the Roman name for the fort was Vindolanda because of an altar set up by the civilians at Vindolanda to the god Vulcan which was found during drainage works in 1914. The altar is on display in the Vindolanda museum.

What has been found at Vindolanda?

A recent discovery at Vindolanda has shed new light on a less understood period of our past in Britain, the 5th and 6th centuries. Buried amongst a rubble filled building, now known to be the remains of a 6th century Christian church, were 14 fragmentary remains of an incredibly rare lead Christian cup or chalice.

What did Romans write letters on?

The Romans – both men and women of all ages – continued to use papyrus for their letters but sometimes used parchment (vellum) and tanned leather, too. Papyrus letters were tied and sealed, although the latter could merely take the form of a few ink lines drawn over the top of the string and paper.

What are the rules for reading and writing Roman numerals?

Roman numerals are written from left to right, and they should be read in that direction, bearing in mind two rules on translation:

• When a symbol is of lesser value than the one after it, subtract the smaller value from the larger one.
• When the symbol is of equal or greater value than one after it, add the two together.

Where is Vindolanda now?

It is noted for the Vindolanda tablets, a set of wooden leaf-tablets that were, at the time of their discovery, the oldest surviving handwritten documents in Britain….

What are the Vindolanda tablets and how were they written?

The Vindolanda tablets are written in Old Roman Cursive, a type of writing current in the first three centuries AD, and not easy to decipher even when written clearly – and many of the tablets were faded, abraded or downright illegible, and sometimes all three.

What does vindolanna stand for?

Vindolanda is the Roman name of a place in Northumbria in the north of England (its modern name being Little Chesters or Chesterholm).

What is the history of the Vindolanda wall?

Vindolanda was a key hub within the complex infrastructure supporting the Roman border, long before the Wall was even built. The Roman Empire conquered Britain in AD 43, initially laying claim to all the island or most of it. For various reasons this proved not quite viable, so a border of sorts appears to have been established in the 80s AD.

What happened to the Romans at Vindolanda?

Vindolanda was built at the place where two streams conjoin to create the Chinley Burn, which ends up in the South Tyne river. As such, the fort’s occupants struggled with wet conditions for most of the four centuries or so that the Romans lived here.