Another has the first line of an address and earliest reference to London

One of the tablets is a financial record with the date of 8 January, 57 AD

They would have been filled with beeswax before users inscribed in them

Archaeologists believe they were used by the Romans

With towers of glass and steel springing up all over the capital, London may seem to have lost all connection with its long, rich history.

But construction work in the heart of the city has unearthed a literary link to the London's Roman past.

An archaeological dig has turned up the earliest known handwritten documents in Britain among hundreds of Roman waxed writing tablets.

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Archaeologists have unearthed hundreds of wooden tablets at a construction site in the City of London, many of which have been deciphered to reveal names, events, business and legal dealings and evidence of someone practising writing the alphabet and numerals (pictured)

‹ Slide me › The excavation has uncovered the earliest readable tablet, which dates 43 AD, in the first decade of Roman rule. It reads: '...because they are boasting through the whole market that you have lent them money. Therefore I ask you in your own interest not to appear shabby...you will not thus favour your own affairs...'

WHAT DO THE TABLETS SAY? Among the tablets are financial records, legal documents, and scribed instructions, most likely for servants running errands. One such note appears to be a shopping list for basic items, but historians believe it refers to a Roman proverb requesting return of a favour. ‘...I ask you by bread and salt that you send as soon as possible the 26 denarii in victoriati and the 10 denarii of Paterio...’ Advertisement

The tablets, which were used by the Romans like paper for note-taking, accounts, correspondence and legal documents, were discovered during excavations for Bloomberg's new European headquarters in the City of London.

Some 410 wooden tablets have been discovered, 87 of which have been deciphered to reveal names, events, business and legal dealings and evidence of someone practising writing the alphabet and numerals.

With only 19 legible tablets previously known from London, the find from the first decades of Roman rule in Britain provides a wealth of new information about the city's earliest Romans.

While wood rarely survives when buried in the ground, the tablets were preserved by the absence of oxygen in the wet mud of the Walbrook, which dominated the area in Roman times but is now one of London's many buried rivers.

Researchers have restored a number of readable tablets (pictured) and translated the Roman text

‹ Slide me › Engraved in one of the wooden tablets is what appears to be the first line of an address and the earliest reference to London around 65 AD (pictured). It reads 'In London, to Mogontius...'

Wooden tablets unearthed in the heart of London would have been used by Romans in the city for note-taking, financial accounts, legal documents and more

SNAPSHOTS OF ROMAN LIFE The wealth of wooden tablets uncovered in central London are providing new insights into the daily lives of Romans living in 1st century London. Many of the wooden tablets, excellently preserved in the mud of a buried river, date back close to the founding of Londinium - the Roman settlement established in 43 AD on the River Thames in what is now the City of London. Among the preserved inscriptions are financial records, instructions for servants and more, which constitute some of the earliest examples of handwriting in Britain. Advertisement

Recesses in the rectangular tablets would originally be filled with blackened beeswax.

This would have been written in using a stylus, and while the wax has not survived, the writing sometimes went on to the wood and can be deciphered.

Sophie Jackson, archaeologist and director at independent charitable company Museum of London Archaeology (MOLA), led the dig.

'We always had high high hopes for the Bloomberg dig, situated in the heart of the Roman and modern city and with perfect wet conditions for the survival of archaeology, but the findings far exceeded all expectations,' she said.

'The writing tablets are truly a gift for archaeologists trying to get closer to the first Roman Britons.'

Deciphering the tablets has revealed they include the earliest dated handwritten document in Britain, a financial record with the date of 8 January, 57 AD.

The Romans would have used bronze spatulas (like the one pictured) to level the wax on the tablets

Archaeologists say writers would have used a stylus to write text in the wax. Pictured is an inscribed stylus held by Museum of London Archaeology

Archaeologists say the tablets were preserved by the absence of oxygen in the wet mud of what is now one of London’s many buried rivers (pictured)

Another tablet has been archaeologically dated to 43-53 AD, the first decade of Roman rule in Britain.

This is also one containing the earliest ever reference to London in around 65-80 AD, 50 years before Roman historian Tacitus cites the city in his Annals.

One tablet is a contract from October 21, 62 AD, to bring 'twenty loads of provisions' from Verulamium - modern day St Albans, Hertfordshire - to London, a year after the revolt by Iceni queen Boudica.

Experts said the contract reveals the rapid recovery of Roman London after it was burned in the Boudican revolt.

Analysis of the wooden tablets (pictured) has provided historians with a glimpse into the lives of Romans in early London

‹ Slide me › Many of the wooden plates, which were reconstituted from barrels, relate to legal matters and records of financial transactions. This tablet is a Roman receipt for 20 truckloads of provision from St Albans (Verulanium), just two years after Boudica's forces devastated swathes of Roman Britain

‹ Slide me › Among the hundreds of wooden tablets were preserved examples of Roman characters, scrawled across the surface. Researchers say the tablets would have had a number of uses, from note-taking to financial records. Analysis of the text has revealed snapshots of Roman life. Pictured is a text from around 80 AD which reads 'you will give this to Junius the Cooper, opposite the house of Catullus'

The names of nearly 100 people, from a cooper, brewer and judge to soldiers, slaves and freemen, found in the collection show the new city was inhabited by businessmen and soldiers.

Oxford University classicist and cursive Latin expert Roger Tomlin, who deciphered and interpreted the tablets, said: 'The Bloomberg writing tablets are very important for the earliest history of Roman Britain, and London in particular.

WHERE DID LONDON GET ITS NAME? The etymology of London is uncertain but it is thought that it is Roman in origin. The first recording of the name Londinium dates from the second century. There was a theory that it originated from a 'King Lud' but this has been discarded. Historians in the 17th Century maintained that the city's name is Celtic and means 'place belonging to a man called Londinos,' but again, this theory has been thrown out. In 1998 Richard Coates suggested that London is pre-Celtic for (p)lowonida - 'river too wide to ford' - suggesting that it is named after the River Thames. It could have a Welsh and Roman origin. Until 1889 the name 'London' only applied to the City of London, which was the Roman part of the city, but it now applies to the county and Greater London. While very little Roman architecture survives above ground, archaeological finds have been protected below the surface of the City, which are marked on this map in red (pictured) Advertisement

'I am so lucky to be the first to read them again, after more than 19 centuries, and to imagine what these people were like, who founded the new city of London.'

After they were excavated, the tablets were kept in water before being carefully cleaned and treated with a waxy substance to replace some of the water content and then freeze dried.

More than 700 artefacts from the excavation will go on display next year in an exhibition space in the new Bloomberg building, including the earliest dated writing tablet.

The wooden tablets were discovered during excavations for Bloomberg's new European headquarters in the City of London (pictured)

The dig took place at Victoria Street in the heart of London's financial district