Typology (Honorific / Funerary / etc.):
Legal document (writing tablet)
Actual Location (Collection/Museum):
Pompeii. Excavation offices (Ufficio scavi)
Physical Characteristics:
127 wooden tablets were discovered in the excavation of a large suburban villa approximately 600 m south of the Stabian Gate of Pompeii in 1959. Consisting of wooden plaques (off approximately 11/12 cm x 13/15 cm) with a recessed square or rectangle in the centre, into which wax had been poured and later inscribed. Some of the documents were diptychs, consisting of two tablets tied together, others triptychs. Once excavated the tablets quickly began to deteriorate, with many now completely lost. Photographs taken by the archaeologists in the initial phase of their study remain the most comprehensive record of the complete archive (For discussion of the excavation of the site and the preservation of the tablets see Camodeca, Tabulae Pompeianae Sulpiciorum, p. 11-20).
The tablet under discussion here was excavated in pieces: Tablet I (inv. 14443A+B) was fragmented into two pieces, with the loss of almost all of line 1; Tablet II (inv. 14356) was discovered whole and legible; Tablet III (inv. 14377) was excavated whole, but with its shape somewhat deformed (see Camodeca, Tabulae Pompeianae Sulpiciorum, p. 164).