Clues to Roman Britain MOLA

Better smarten up if you want to get ahead in business. That’s advice from the earliest writing ever discovered in the UK.

The message is part of a haul of 405 writing tablets unearthed in the heart of London, metres from Bank underground station. They date from as early as AD 43, the year the Romans started their conquest of Britain.

The tablets reveal a rich cast of 1st-century Londoners, contain the first ever written reference to the city, and hint at Britain’s very first school (see “What the ancient texts say”, below).


“It’s exceptional, really wonderful,” says Michael Speidel, at the Mavors Institute for Ancient Military History in Basel, Switzerland. “Looking at things in the past is usually a bit like glaring into a fog and we can’t really see beyond. With documents like this, the fog clears away a bit.”

Before the Romans invaded, London didn’t exist, says Roman historian Roger Tomlin at the University of Oxford. There were just “wild west, hillbilly-style settlements” scattered around the area.

The newly discovered documents written in Latin – which date from between AD 43 and AD 80 – show the city quickly became filled with a variety of characters, including soldiers, merchants, judges and even a brewer.

“I’ve been digging around in London for years and never quite imagined that in the late 1st century, there was a community of people who are very much like us,” says Sophie Jackson, who manages the dig for the Museum of London Archaeology.

Stationery problems

Aside from a few scrawled pottery shards, the next-earliest known example of writing in Britain is the huge cache of inked wood scraps and wax tablets excavated from the Vindolanda fort near Hadrian’s Wall in northern England.

The earliest of these is at least 40 years later than some of the new haul. The new find “pushes the written record almost back to the conquest”, says Andrew Birley, director of excavations at Vindolanda.

Examples of Roman writing are rare because ancient stationery tends to degrade easily. These survived because of a quirk of fate. Back in the mid-1st century, the course of the Thames ran about 100 metres further north, and the area between modern sites of the Bank of England and St Paul’s Cathedral where the dig is situated was a hilly area bisected by the river Walbrook.

Archaeologists excavating in London MOLA

The dig was started because a new office was being built on the site and it’s a legal requirement to do an archaeological assessment before that happens.

During excavations between 2010 and 2014, Jackson’s team found that the river is still there. “The Walbrook still runs – underground,” she says. The waterlogged ground 6 metres down was free from oxygen, saving all sorts of artefacts from oxidation, which normally breaks them down.

The archaeologists found some 400 shoes and the leather backs from a set of six dining chairs. “It’s fantastic stuff that you’d never normally see,” says Jackson.

But the prize discovery was the wooden tablets. These were once filled with wax, which Romans would scratch messages into with an iron stylus. Sometimes the scratches would leave traces on the wood behind.

Oldest writing in Britain?

Tomlin had the job of deciphering these traces. It was particularly tough, he says, because the wax on tablets was often replaced, meaning there are often several sets of shallow scratches on top of each other.

He took pictures of the tablets illuminated from four directions and superimposed the images to get sharper resolutions of each edge. “If you’re the sort of person who likes crossword puzzles, it’s quite satisfying,” he says.

What the ancient texts say “(AD 62-65) “…I ask you by bread and salt that you send as soon as possible the 26 denarii in victoiriati and the 10 denarii of Paterio…” “This sounds like a liquidity crisis,” says Roger Tomlin of the University of Oxford, who deciphered the tablets. The appeal to bread and salt may have been a cliché at the time. Bread and salt represents hospitality in many cultures, so the expression might be appealing to recipient to be kind and offer a loan as a favour. (AD 65-80) “…Classicus, prefect of the Sixth Cohort of Nervii.” A lot can deduced from this fragment of text because the name “Classicus” is so rare. The only individual we know of by that name is famous for being the leader of a cavalry regiment that joined a revolt against Roman rule in what is now Germany in AD 70. In this older fragment he is leading a lesser regiment, which fits in with the known way in which Roman military careers progressed. (AD 65–80) ‘In London, to Mogontius…’ A letter written from London addressed to someone called Mogontio is the earliest reference to the city. (AD 43-53) “…because they are boasting through the whole market that you have lent them money. Therefore, I ask you in your own interest to not appear shabby. You will not thus favour your own affairs…” This seems to be passing on business advice. The word “market” probably refers to a forum, the centre of Roman public life. It’s not clear whether the place referred to is in London, elsewhere, or even a metaphorical usage. Michael Speidel of the Mavors Institute in Basel, Switzerland, says it’s not unreasonable to think London had a forum by then; the Romans often built town plazas very quickly after founding a town. (AD57) “In the consulship of Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus for the second time and of Lucius Calpurnius Piso, on the 6th day before the Ides of January. I, Tibullus the freedman of Venustus, have written and say that I owe Gratus the freedman of Spurius 105 denarii from the price of the merchandise which has been sold and delivered. This money I am due to repay him or the person whom the matter will concern…” This might be Britain’s earliest IOU. Romans had a cumbersome way of defining years – naming the two consulates elected for that year – but in this case it means the document effectively dates itself. (AD60-62) “…ABCDIIFGHIKL, MNOPQRST…” This looks like writing practice, so could be evidence of Britain’s first school. We have evidence of a Roman general named Agricola encouraging his children to go to school in the 70s and 80s, but this would be much earlier.

The messages hold clues to what society was like at the time. At Vindolanda fort, the tablets typically see people addressing each other as dearest brother or sister. The London tablets, used for keeping records, as notebooks and for letters, will reveal how urban society was organised, says Birley.

It’s the earliest evidence of writing found in Britain so far. Whether the Celts who lived in Britain at the time of the Roman conquest were literate isn’t known. No evidence of them writing has been found so far.

However, we do know that merchants operated in Britain before the conquest, and probably communicated with the Roman empire. “So it is still technically possible that somewhere in Britain we might get a collection of earlier material,” says Birley. “But I have to say that’s extremely unlikely.”

Read more: Spectacular archaeology in the shadow of London’s skyscrapers