Sunday, October 04, 2009

SOME OF THE VINDOLANDA TABLETS are going home for a while:
Roman 'postcards' to go on show

(BBC)

"Postcards" written by Roman soldiers stationed in Northumberland are to be returned to the county.

The Vindolanda Tablets, named after the camp on Hadrian's Wall, are currently held in The British Museum in London.

Using a £4m Heritage Lottery Fund grant, a gallery is to be created at Vindolanda allowing some of them to be returned on temporary loan.

The tablets are among the earliest examples of the written word discovered in Britain.

They include a birthday party invitation from a commander's wife, while another reveals that soldiers wore underpants to keep warm in the northern winter.

[...]
Background to this exhibition (I think) is here. Follow the links there for more on the Vindolanda texts and their importance.