Can anyone identify and explain the script used in the Vindolanda Tablets?
http://vindolanda.csad.ox.ac.uk/
This has been a curiosity of mine for a while - perhaps I am blind as I cannot find any reference to what the script is on the website… I discovered this site after reading “Minimus - Starting out in Latin” Written by Barbara Bell.
Cheers,
Mark
Well, I didn’t look at all of them, but I’d say “rustic capitals” are the most used script. Some googling or a book on palaeagraphy will have the details.
Thank you Annis… you gave me enough information to find the answer.
The script used is actually Late or “Old” Roman Cusive.
…all the tablets from Vindolanda are written in some form of the cursive script. Roman cursive writing is normally divided into two categories or families of script, Old Roman Cursive and New Roman Cursive (henceforth referred to as ORC and NRC) 11. ORC, sometimes called ‘capital cursive’, was the dominant script for writing other than that in books during the first three centuries A.D. In the late third century it was replaced by NRC, often called ‘minuscule cursive’, which became the dominant script from about 300 onwards, leading indirectly to Caroline minuscule in about A.D. 800 and so to the script we employ today. Despite the many variations to be seen in the different tablets from Vindolanda12. we consider it legitimate to classify them all (with the few exceptions just noted) as written in ORC.
To anyone who is unfamiliar with the script of wax writing-tablets and papyri from the first two centuries of the Roman Empire, the writing in these tablets from Vindolanda may well appear extremely weird, almost as if it were written in a different alphabet from the Latin capitals with which we are familiar from inscriptions13 In fact, as Mallon has shown, this script is directly derived from the capital writing in use in the late first century B.C. and the first century A.D.14. Furthermore, the script in use in the Vindolanda tablets is very much the type of writing we should expect from our knowledge of writing on contemporary papyri.
So far I haven’t be able to find a table mapping the characters of the script to our modern roman script.
Cheers,
Mark
http://vindolanda.csad.ox.ac.uk/exhibition/paleo-2.shtml
http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/Scriptorium/Class/MurgImgs/romancurs.html
Ingrid
I wonder why they wrote the “b” and "d’ around the same way - seems very confusing. The rest of the letters just seem to be a product of writing implements used - you sort of had to scratch the letters rather than the flowing style used with a nib pen or modern pencils, pens etc.
Thanks for providing this information - and a new site on ancient writing.