The Writing Tablets of Roman Tongeren (Belgium) and Associated Wooden Finds
Edited by Else Hartoch
A beautifully illustrated and insightful volume that introduces the lost world of Roman Tongeren and its writing tablets to professionals and the general public alike
Roman wooden writing tablets, known in Latin as tabulae ceratae, have been found by archaeologists in various locations around the Belgian town of Tongeren, the former capital of the civitas/municipium Tungrorum. These rare and delicate finds are remarkable not only due to the excellent state of their preservation, but also because they are inscribed with the remnants of texts, once etched into an overlying wax layer, that can, to the discerning eye, still be deciphered. The tablets not only provide concrete information about religious, judicial and administrative practices, but they also enhance our understanding of the complex processes of Romanisation and Latinisation in the northwestern civitates and municipia of the Roman Empire. Largely unearthed in the first half of the twentieth century, with a second group discovered in 2013, the Roman tablets housed in the Gallo-Roman Museum of Tongeren and in the city’s municipal heritage depository, became the object of an in-depth study by an international team of specialists piloted by the Gallo-Roman Museum. It is the results of this project that are presented here in this volume for the first time. The painstaking process of deciphering and interpreting the script marks and text fragments is here explored via analysis of palaeography, philology and onomastics, as well as explanations of scientific techniques such as wax analysis and script visualisation by Multi-Light Reflectance Imaging. Rich detail is also provided about other associated wooden finds that shed light on how and where the tablets were produced. The result is a beautifully illustrated and insightful volume that introduces the lost world of Tongeren and its writing tablets to professionals and the general public alike.
- Edited by Else Hartoch
Similar Books
Caesar’s Visions and Impact on the Roman Empire
Revisiting the Archaeological and Historical Record of the 40s BC
Volume 2
Etruscan and Roman Hellenistic Anatomical ex votos
Reassessing Popular Religious Expressions in Central Italy
Volume 8
Invisible Labour in Antiquity
Visualizing Obscure Work in the Ancient Mediterannean and West Asia
Volume 1
Late Antique villae in the Balkans (3rd–7th c. AD): Current Research Questions and Perspectives
HAEMUS Companion to the Late Antique Balkans 1
Volume 4
Portraying the Individual in the Roman East
Local–Imperial Entanglements in Sculpture, Mosaics, and Paintings (First–Fourth Centuries AD)
Volume 18
A Dramatic Event in Late Roman Florence
The Anomalous Burial Site Discovered beneath the Uffizi Gallery
Alexander the Great and the Campaign of Gaugamela
New Research on Topography and Chronology. IAMNI 1 (Italian Archaeological Mission to Northern Iraq)
Volume 53
Ceramic Finds in Context (Roman to Early Islamic Times)
Final Publications from the Danish-German Jerash Northwest Quarter Project VII
Volume 13
Citizenship Practised, Citizenship Imagined
Multiple Ways of Experiencing Citizenship in the Greek World
Counterfeits, Imitations, and Copies of Roman Imperial Denarii
Making and Faking Coins on Both Sides of the Limes
Volume 8
Eating and Drinking along Ancient Roads and Rivers: Study Opportunities, Archaeological Sources and Open Issues about Diet Habits
Roads and Rivers 3
Explorations in Islamic Archaeology
Material Culture, Settlements, and Landscapes from the Mediterranean to Western Asia
Volume 7
