Paper as we know it today was not a product used within the Roman period. So what happened when someone wanted to write something down? A variety of materials were used as surfaces on which to write. Writing tablets inlaid with wax on which texts were inscribed are probably amongst the best-known from the Roman period, conjuring images in the popular imagination of Roman school boys practising their grammar exercises. There are in fact an amazing selection of preserved examples of these from Vindolanda, at Hadrian’s Wall in the north of Britain. However, in Roman and late antique Egypt, other materials were more extensively used, of which the Petrie Museum provides some fantastic examples. These include ostraca (essentially pot sherds – n.b. in archaeology they are “sherds”, not “shards”), as well as the better known papyrus, a material made from the fibres of a reed-like plant.
In particular, broken pots and amphorae were a ubiquitous presence throughout the Roman Empire thanks to their use in daily life as containers for a variety of foodstuffs. You need only look at the famous Monte Testaccio in Rome, an artificial hill constructed from Roman pottery pieces, for evidence of this! These pottery sherds also provided a smooth, portable – and free – material on which notes could be recorded, or letters written and exchanged. The Petrie collection contains several hundred examples.
On the example above, the ostracon carries a Greek text that begins, “Soter acting through Ammonius […]”, suggesting the text records some sort of semi-official activity, with the rest of the writing illegible. Greek was the main written language in Egypt after the province became a Hellenistic kingdom under Ptolemies after Alexander the Great’s death. By the Roman period, it was used for a variety of documents, with Latin conversely used mainly for imperial business. This ostracon is representative of the majority of examples found in the archaeological record, with a rough but reasonably regular shape that preserves the striations from the throwing of the original pot.
The reverse reveals a ridged surface with a black coating of resin or bitumen. This was originally the interior of the vessel, with the coating acting as waterproofing to counteract the natural porosity of the ceramic. Other examples show even greater care in shaping the ostracon, with edges carefully chipped to produce smooth neat edges and a regularly shaped writing area. However, a different example contrasts with these regular shaped fragments; it is still far more “pot” than “pot sherd”.
This fragment of Greek text has been written on the upper body of a clay jug or bottle. The text breaks off, suggesting the note was written on the vessel when it was near-complete. Incredibly the original stopper is still in situ, showing the plug of what appears to be palm fibre, held in place with coarse string which ties around the vessel’s arms. It is topped with a complete plaster seal, showing that the vessel was never opened. The seal still bears oval impressions from a stamp.
This object is extraordinary in that it preserves details such as the jug’s neck closure that would usually be lost as soon as the vessel was opened and used. It also preserves organic details such as stopper material and string position that would deteriorate in anything other than the driest or wettest of conditions. However, perhaps most significantly, this object preserves in remarkable detail its two differing functions – that of container, and that of writing surface. It was likely used as a writing surface when complete, with the text relating to the contents of the jug (the remains of the text seem to refer to “produce”).
Another evocative example of the variety of materials used as writing surfaces in Egypt is a large piece of bone which still preserves some textual remains. Dating from the late Roman period, this object is the shoulder blade of an ox. You can see that there are columns of writing, again in Greek, down the centre of the large flat area. These are a list of names with figures beside them, presumably reflecting a set of accounts of some sort.
As a material, this piece of bone shows evidence of having been smoothed and shaped, with the central ridge of bone filed down and the extant edges made more regular in shape. Such alterations served to improve the writing surface, and presumably made it easier to handle and use. Closer inspection of this bone “ostracon” reveals further details. On the reverse are the remains of more writing, with some characters fainter than others and writing orientation visible in a number of directions. There also seem to be layers of writing, meaning this object was used as a palimpsest.
A palimpsest is a document that contains more than one text, written at different times – the surface is written upon and then expunged of its text at a later date, to be reused again as a writing surface. These are known especially of papyri documents, with ink being washed or scraped off to enable the material to be reused. This example here appears to be exactly this sort of kind of artefact – and certainly the smooth polished surface of the bone would aid the removal of older texts. The owners, having found such a suitable object for recording texts clearly realised it could be fruitfully reused. The production of accounts – either in the form of payments made and received, or even stock takes – likely happened at regular intervals, creating an ongoing purpose for this artefact, whose size and shape was considered ideal for the task at hand.
In a pre-industrial society such as Roman Egypt, the use, reuse, and recycling of a variety of materials made perfect sense. Notably in these examples, the materials would have been either free or by-products of other activities, meaning there was also an economic impetus to their reuse, alongside any other practical considerations. These examples also highlight for us the changes that objects underwent across their lifespans, with different functions and values existing either consecutively or simultaneously. The reality of the use of such objects often contrasts with our own preconceptions, and artefacts like these really help to emphasise the rich world of meaning and function that relates to the material culture of this period.