Texts From the Early Years of Roman Rule Found in London

LONDON, ENGLAND—Excavations at the site of the new European Bloomberg headquarters have yielded 405 Roman writing tablets, 87 of which have been deciphered. According to a report in BBC News, this more than quadruples the number of known Roman writing tablets recovered in London. Romans would have used styluses to write on a layer of blackened beeswax covering such wooden tablets. The wax did not survive on these tablets, but some of the etchings went through the wax to mark the wood, which was preserved for nearly 2,000 years in the mud of the buried Walbrook River. Roger Tomlin, an expert in cursive Latin, deciphered and interpreted the writings with the help of digital photographic methods. The texts include the earliest-known reference to London, an alphabet thought to have been written as practice or to demonstrate literacy, and a financial document dated January 8, A.D. 57. Researchers from the Museum of London Archaeology say it is the earliest intrinsically dated document to have been found in the United Kingdom.