Ancient writings hit the web
Thousands of texts dating back to the T
Roman occupation of Britain have been made freely available to the public via a vast web archive.
Relaunched in September with new material, Roman Inscriptions of Britain Online (romaninscriptionsofbritain.org) now provides access to nearly 4,000 ancient writings discovered across the country.
Featuring images of the original artefacts, highlights include the Bloomberg tablets – a set of wooden tablets excavated ahead of construction on Bloomberg Media Group’s London headquarters between 2010 and 2014. Mostly dating from the second half of the first century AD, the tablets offer a unique insight into life in the city, with one even bearing the address “Londinio Mogontio” (“In London, to Mogontius”) – the earliest known written reference to the future UK capital.
Elsewhere on the site, readers can also examine a collection of 773 texts found at Vindolanda Roman fort in Northumberland during the 1970s, including a birthday party invite sent to Sulpicia Lepidina, the wife of the camp’s commander.
The searchable library has been created by Scott Vanderbilt and colleagues from the research group LatinNow, centred at the University of Nottingham.
Dr Alex Mullen, associate professor in classical studies, said it would allow users to find out what was available in their local museum at the “click of a button”.
She added: “Roman Britain might not have as many written texts as some of the other provinces of the Roman empire, but our long obsession with collecting and publishing them systematically means we have a record that is second to none.
“This fantastic resource assembles everything in one place, with access to the texts, images [and] archaeological context for anyone working on, or interested in, Roman Britain.”