Roman inscribed wooden tablet.

Rectangular wooden (probably cedar) tablet, ca. 130 x 130 mm. 20.6 grams. With a recessed panel on one side, variously re-used, bearing traces of 15-20 lines showing the scratched remains of letters written in cursive script with a wax stylus; 3½ lines of large inked text to verso. A fine example of a Late Antique writing tablet from the Roman province of Numidia. Originally the recessed panel was filled in with a layer of soft wax into which the writer would inscribe his text with a stylus, often also scratching the wooden ground. As such tablets were used over and over again, traces of many different texts can be found on the wooden surface, forming an fascinating palimpsest of scratch marks that await further research. - Intriguingly, on the verso are a few contemporary inked lines in a cursive hand, forming one of the earliest extant documents in world history to be written in ink. In his "Historia Naturalis" (book 35, §25), Pliny gives a classic account of such "atramentum", describing it as a mineral "made from soot in various forms, as (for instance) of burnt rosin or pitch . Book-writers' ink has gum mixed with it, weaver's ink is made up with glue. Ink whose materials have been liquified by the agency of an acid is erased with great difficulty". - The full document would have been a diptych or triptych, comprising two or even three tablets, very likely (as was common) a record of a transaction in formulaic legal Latin. - One tablet of a document which consisted of two or three pieces; pierced three times for attachment. Right and left tablet edge slightly irregular, following the wood grain, while the upper and lower edge are entirely straight. Accompanied by a collection of eight 1970s photographs of the tablet. - Acquired in 1950 from a collector in Bône (Annaba), Algeria, by Albert A. Sfez, who moved to France, and then to Belgium, in 1962. Gifted to his son, Alain Claude Sfez, in 1965. Sold in 1973 to the noted numismatist, Byzantinist and dealer Michael Dennis O'Hara of Brussels/London. In turn sold in 1975 to Derrick Dean of Carshalton, south London (d. 1997). Gifted to or inherited by Derrick Dean’s son, Timothy Dean, and purchased from him by the last owner. - Cf. Peter Rothenhöfer, Neue römische Rechtsdokumente aus dem Byzacena-Archiv / New Roman Legal Documents from the Byzacena Archive, (forthcoming); P. Rothenhöfer, J. Blänsdorf, "Sana mente sanaque memoria testamentum feci: Eine testamentarische Verfügung vom 12. April 340 n. Chr.", Gephyra 13 (2016), pp. 153-163; P. Rothenhöfer, "Neues zum Testament des Pomponius Maximus aus dem Jahr 371 n. Chr." (forthcoming); J. D. Thomas, Vindolanda: The Latin Writing Tablets, Britannia Monograph Series No. 4 (London, 1983) (for examples of wooden tabulae re-used as writing surfaces).