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Vindolanda 1985: the New Writing-Tablets

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 September 2012

Alan K. Bowman  and
J. David Thomas
Alan K. Bowman
Affiliation:
Christ Church, Oxford
J. David Thomas
Affiliation:
Durham University
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Extract

Excavations were resumed at Vindolanda in the pre-Hadrianic section of the site in the summer of 1985. The prediction that the area was likely to contain further deposits of writing-tablets was strikingly confirmed and it can now be confidently stated that the publication, by the present authors, of the tablets discovered in 1973-5 was only the first instalment. It is as yet unclear when the full publication of the new finds can be expected or what precise form it will take. This is the justification, if any is needed, for presenting this summary account of the 1985 material. The inventory numbers under which the new tablets are catalogued run to almost 340; many contain several fragments; most, but not all, have at least traces of writing. It is at present envisaged that three more seasons of excavation will be undertaken in 1986, 1987 and 1988, investigating an area which extends some 15–20 metres to the north of the present terminus. There is some reason to think that the writing-tablet deposit may cover the whole or a substantial part of this area and it is therefore possible that the subsequent seasons may yield as many tablets as that of 1985.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Roman Studies , Volume 76 , November 1986 , pp. 120 - 123
Copyright
Copyright © Alan K. Bowman and J. David Thomas 1986. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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References

1 Vindolanda: the Latin Writing-Tablets, Britannia Monograph 4, 1983 (= Tab. Vindol.).

2 It is our present intention to offer full editions of some of the more interesting 1985 texts in an article which we hope to be able to publish in Britannia 1987.

3 Throughout this article the tablets found in the 1985 excavation are cited in the form ‘inv. no. oo’.

4 At the time of writing the first handful of tablets from the 1986 excavation has just emerged.

5 For the archaeological information which follows, as for much else, we are indebted to Robin Birley.

6 Tab. Vindol., pp 22–3.

7 Ep. 3. 8. 1.

8 CIL 16. 48.

9 See, for example, Roxan, M., Roman Military Diplomas, Diplomas, 1978–84 (1985)Google Scholar, index, s.v.

10 Roxan, op cit., index, s.v.

11 Tacitus, Agr. 36, see Tab. Vindol. 2, introd.

12 Tab. Vindol. 30–3. An improved photograph of Tab. Vindol. 104 now clearly reveals his name there too. Note that this does not affect the two persons called Crispinus in Tab. Vindol. 37.

13 For early papyri of Virgil see Hawara, P. 24 (with Dow, JRS 58 (1968), 60–70)Google Scholar; Gallazzi, ZPE 48 (1982), 75–8; Cockle, , Scrittura e civiltà 3 (1979), 55–75Google Scholar; Hagedorn, ZPE 34 (1979), 108; Maehler, , Actes du XVe congrès Internationale de papyrologie 11 (1979), 18–41Google Scholar and Horsfall, cf., Atti del Convegno mondiale scientifico di studi su Virgilio (1981), 19Google Scholar; it is interesting to report the discovery, almost simultaneous with the Vindolanda find, of a papyrus from Masada containing part of a line of Aeneid iv (we are indebted to Prof. J. Geiger of Jerusalem University for permission to refer to this).

14 Inv. no. 42 which is also to Lepidina and is very likely to be from the same person has a reference to Brocchus; this naturally takes us back to one of the writers of Tab. Vindol. 21; possibly this is C. Aelius Brocchus, known later as the commander of an ala in Pannonia, see Devijver, H., Prosopographia militiarum equestrium … 1 (1976), 26.Google Scholar

15 e.g. Propertius 1. 7. 3; Cicero, ad fam. 16. 20. 1: ‘sollicitat, ita vivam, me tua, mi Tiro, valetudo’.