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Vindolanda
Vindolanda was a Roman auxiliary fort (''castrum'') just south of Hadrian's Wall in northern England, which it originally pre-dated.British windo- 'fair, white, blessed', landa 'enclosure/meadow/prairie/grassy plain' (the modern Welsh word would be something like ''gwynlan'', and the modern Gaelic word ''fionnlann'' ld Gaelic word ''Fiondland''). Archaeological excavations of the site show it was under Roman occupation from roughly 85 AD to 370 AD. Located near the modern village of Bardon Mill in Northumberland, it guarded the Stanegate, the Roman road from the River Tyne to the Solway Firth. 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. Early accounts The first post-Roman record of the ruins at Vindolanda was made by the antiquarian William Camden, in his ''Britannia'' (1586). Occasional travellers reached the site over the next two hundred years, a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vindolanda Tablets
The Vindolanda tablets were, at the time of their discovery, the oldest surviving handwritten documents in Britain (they have since been antedated by the Bloomberg tablets). They are a rich source of information about life on the northern frontier of Roman Britain. Written on fragments of thin, post-card sized wooden leaf-tablets with carbon-based ink, the tablets date to the 1st and 2nd centuries AD (roughly contemporary with Hadrian's Wall). Although similar records on papyrus were known from elsewhere in the Roman Empire, wooden tablets with ink text had not been recovered until 1973, when archaeologist Robin Birley, his attention being drawn by student excavator Keith Liddell, discovered some at the site of Vindolanda, a Roman fort in northern England. 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. Highlights of the tablets include an invitation to a bi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robin Birley (archaeologist)
Robin Edgar Birley (19 January 1935 – 29 August 2018) was a British archaeologist. He was the Director of Excavations at the Roman site of Vindolanda and head of the Vindolanda research committee. He was the son of Eric Birley (a scholar of Hadrian's Wall) and brother of Anthony Birley. His wife Patricia Birley and son Andrew Birley are also published authors on Roman Vindolanda. Education and career Both Birley brothers lived at the site with their father Eric Birley, with Robin starting his first excavation at age 14. He was educated at Clifton College, before spending some years with the Royal Marines before returning to work at Vindolanda and becoming the Director of the Vindolanda Trust. Birley excavated extensively at the site of Vindolanda and was intimately involved in the discovery of the Vindolanda tablets in 1973 and their subsequent interpretation and publication. These are a series of wooden tablets containing handwritten script, which continue to be discovered a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
