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Vindolanda tablets preserved everyday Roman army mail

Waterlogged rubbish at a British fort kept wooden letters readable for nineteen centuries Excavations from 1973 at Vindolanda, a fort near Hadrian's Wall, produced hundreds of thin wooden leaf tablets written in ink. They record supply requests, dinner invitations and leave rosters from around 85 to 130 CE. Oxygen starved waterlogged soil preserved writing that would normally vanish within years. It sits in Mondo's history collection, one of 200 facts that each trace back to the reference below.

Where this comes from

British Museum

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Tags: roman-britain, archaeology, letters

Vindolanda tablets preserved everyday Roman army mail: the short answers

Where does this come from, and can I check it?
Waterlogged rubbish at a British fort kept wooden letters readable for nineteen centuries. The figure is taken from British Museum, which is linked in full on this page. Every fact on Mondo Knows names its source rather than repeating an unsourced claim.
Is this really a history fact?
Yes. It sits on the History shelf, one of 2,600 sourced facts grouped into space, animals, the human body, history, science and more. Category pages collect every fact in the same field.
What else can I read about it?
The links under the fact point to a quiz, game, puzzle or calculator on the same subject, and the shelf below shows related facts. The wording here is original, and quoted phrases are marked as quotations.