Beer and Birthday: Roman alphabet unearthed near Hadrian's Great Wall

Scientists found a pile of letters written in ink on the chip. (Image copyright) The Windolanda Trust excavated a batch of secret letters near the ruins of ancient Roman fortresses in England.

On June 22nd, faded wood chips written in ink were found underground near Fort Windolanda. Fragile wooden letters discarded in the first century A.D. were discarded in a small digging pit.

The treasures of the Roman alphabet are in a surprisingly primitive state, which is due to the anaerobic or anaerobic conditions in which they are buried. Therefore, with the passage of time, the bacteria that usually degrade these objects have no chance to attack these cultural relics.

"Some of these new tablets are very well preserved, and they can be read before going through a long-term preservation process without ordinary infrared photography." "Nothing is more exciting than reading these personal information from the distant past," said Robin Billy, an archaeologist in charge of archaeological excavations in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. . . Billy's son Andrew is now the excavation director of the site. [Roman fortress: see the long-lost discovery map]

The treasure of Roman letters in the Roman fortress was found in the ruins of Windolanda, which used to be a Roman fortress, south of Hadrian's Great Wall in Northumberland, England. (Windolanda Trust) The ruins of Windolanda used to be a Roman fortress, just south of Hadrian's Great Wall, and now it is Northumberland, England. At that time, this wall (built by Emperor Hadrian in A.D. 122) was the northern border of the Roman Empire. In 1970s, archaeologists began to dig wooden strips the size of postcards, which were covered with information written in ink. Andrew Burleigh said that the stories they told described more than 400 named characters and a community composed of tundra (Belgian), Batavians (Dutch), Vaduli (Spanish) and other races, from commanders to slaves.

Taken together, the storage of documents provided an unprecedented life for the Roman garrison. In addition to beer invitations, birthday invitations and letters with derogatory names written to local people, the tablet collection also contains the oldest European female handwriting in the correspondence between the wives of two senior military commanders. The letter revealed that these women seem to live a lonely life.

The latest discovery comes from an archaeological layer, just above the agricultural land before ancient Rome, with a steep edge and a narrow ditch at the bottom, which is easily flooded, Andrew Billy said. These letters were scattered between 65,438+00 feet and 65,438+03 feet (3 meters and 4 meters), trapped in a layer of soil and organic garbage, and dumped by the Roman army, laying the foundation for new buildings in the fortress. In an email, Berry told Field Science that these letters may be discarded after being read, and there are other rubbish. In the latest tablet cache, a man named Mas Kurrus asked for leave, which is "commeatus" in Latin. In the past correspondence, "he was recorded as writing a letter to the commander, and Falvey Uzi Selaris asked him to send beer to these people, because if they didn't receive the beer, he couldn't" answer for them ". At that time, he was stationed far away from Windolanda and needed supplies from the base, "Andrew Billy said.

The next step is to put these sawdust together through infrared photography and strict preservation process, so that more words can be decoded.

This is an original article about life science.