Vindolanda

Vindolanda was established around 85 AD as a Roman auxiliary fort, garrisoning non-citizen troops serving alongside the legions. It predates Hadrian’s Wall by more than three decades; when the Wall was built from 122 AD, Vindolanda became one of its supporting forts, lying a short distance south of the Wall. The site was occupied continuously until around 400 AD.

The key to its archaeological importance is the sequence of construction. Each time the fort was rebuilt, the previous structures were demolished and new ones raised on top. The lower layers were sealed by compacted soil, keeping them permanently waterlogged and anaerobic. Organic materials that would normally rot — wood, leather, textiles — were preserved in near-perfect condition across nineteen centuries.

The tablets were first discovered in 1973 by Robin Birley during excavations of the pre-Hadrianic forts. Since then, approximately 752 tablets have been recovered. They are written in ink on wafer-thin leaves of wood, roughly the size of a modern postcard and around 2mm thick. When first exposed to air they appear almost black; advanced imaging techniques now allow the faint carbon-based ink to be read.

The tablets date primarily from around 85 to 130 AD. They form the official archive of the Roman garrison: strength reports listing exactly how many soldiers were on duty, sick, on detachment, or absent; requests for supplies; personal letters; and accounts. Together they form an incomparably detailed picture of a Roman military community at a specific place and time.

The most famous tablet is an invitation to a birthday party. Claudia Severa, wife of the commander of a neighbouring fort, writes to Sulpicia Lepidina, wife of the Vindolanda commander: “I give you a warm invitation to come to us, to make my day more enjoyable by your arrival, if you are present.” A different, rougher hand adds a closing sentence in what may be the oldest surviving sample of a woman’s handwriting in Latin.

Another tablet contains a soldier’s complaint about the Brittunculi — “wretched little Britons” — suggesting the garrison viewed the local population with contempt. Requests for everyday supplies appear repeatedly: pepper, wine, fish sauce, goat’s hair, and, in one celebrated example, underpants for the cold northern climate.

Vindolanda is unusual among major archaeological sites: excavations continue each summer, and visitors can watch professional archaeologists at work from viewing platforms. New tablets are still being found. In 2022, excavators recovered a tablet that appears to contain lines from Virgil’s Aeneid used as a writing exercise, making it the most northerly Virgil manuscript ever found.

The site is managed by the Vindolanda Trust and includes a museum and reconstructed fort sections. It is one of the most visited archaeological sites in northern England and a key component of the Hadrian’s Wall UNESCO World Heritage Site, inscribed 1987.

The anaerobic deposits have yielded far more than tablets. Hundreds of leather shoes — including children’s shoes that confirm the fort housed families — were found in perfect condition. Wooden combs with hair still threaded through them. Fragments of woollen textiles. Animal bones with butchery marks. All of this organic material paints a picture of daily life that stone and metal alone cannot provide.

Metalwork finds include weapons, military fittings, and personal ornaments. Ceramic imports from across the Roman world confirm that Vindolanda was connected to supply networks stretching from North Africa to the Rhine.

The original tablets are divided between the British Museum in London and the on-site Vindolanda Museum. The British Museum tablets can be read in full via the publicly accessible online database maintained jointly by the British Museum and Oxford University. The Vindolanda Museum displays a significant selection in context alongside contemporaneous objects.

Replicas of the tablets — including the birthday party invitation and the underpants request — are displayed at Vindolanda itself, giving visitors a sense of how small and fragile these documents are compared to their historical significance.

Address

Chesterholm, near Bardon Mill, Hexham, Northumberland NE47 7JN, England

Transport

Car recommended; seasonal Hadrian’s Wall Bus (AD122) stops nearby

UNESCO status

Part of Hadrian’s Wall World Heritage Site (inscribed 1987)

Opening

Open daily February–November; museum year-round (check vindolanda.com)

Most of what we know about ancient Rome comes from elite literature written by and for the powerful. Vindolanda inverts this completely. Its tablets were written by ordinary soldiers, their wives, and mid-ranking officers — people whose names appear in no history. They were writing about pepper and parties and personnel rosters. That ordinariness is precisely what makes them irreplaceable: proof that the Roman Empire was not only an abstraction of power and conquest but a lived human world, full of people worrying about the cold and looking forward to a friend’s visit.