Our group included several members of the project team, with Ester Ferreira and Andreas Krupa from the Cologne Institute of Conservation Sciences, and Lucia Colella, Daniele Ferraiuolo, Laura Noviello, and Michele Cammarosano from the University of Naples L’Orientale. But we were also fortunate enough to have with us Michele Stefanile, archaeologist and epigraphist and a deep connoisseur of the Vesuvian wax tablet corpora, as well as two true stars in the study of the early history of the codex: Georgios Boudalis of the Museum of Byzantine Culture in Thessaloniki, a renown codicologist and an external collaborator of the project, and Brent Nongbri from the University of Oslo, a historian of religions and papyrologist (and author of the fantastic blog Variant Readings!), who was able to join us while on a research stay in Rome. The final day also saw the participation of Angela Bosco and Rosario Valentini from L’Orientale, who came specifically to carry out an RTI documentation test.

 

Why we were there:

The activity took place within the framework of the scientific collaboration agreement between the MANN and the University of Naples “L’Orientale” / ERC Project TabulaRasa, with the primary aim of initiating an in-depth and interdisciplinary study of the Roman wax tablets housed in the Museum. For our project, the Vesuvian tablet collection represents a fundamental and indispensable case study. The mission pursued several objectives. First of all, it was essential to establish direct contact with the original manuscripts, assessing their preservation state, and understanding the practical working conditions in the storerooms. At the same time, meetings with museum staff had been planned to help define priorities and timelines for the collaboration, laying the groundwork for the next phases of research. Work also focused on codicology: a group of selected tablets was to be examined in detail to produce a first assessment on the wood species involved and how the tablets were manufactured. In parallel, the team would discuss and experiment with documentation strategies, including tests of high-resolution techniques such as Reflectance Transformation Imaging (RTI). Finally, microscopic residues of wax had to be sampled for chemical analysis through gas chromatography (GC) at the TH Köln laboratories, an essential step toward understanding the material composition of the ancient writing surfaces.

How we worked:

Our work began on 22 October, with a first close look at the archaeological material and a shared discussion on how to approach it. From the very beginning, it was clear that we were dealing with exceptional documentary archives — two windows onto the written culture of Roman daily life. In the frame of preparatory work for the mission carried out by Giuseppe Camodeca (the leading expert on the Vesuvian wax tablet corpora) and Michele Stefanile, a selection of pugillares from Herculaneum and tablets from the house of Lucius Caecilius Iucundus in Pompeii had been singled out for close examination. 

The Herculaneum tablets, found in several houses across the ancient city, offer a rare and fragmentary but compelling mosaic of personal, legal, and administrative writings. Each piece, however small, speaks to the complexity of written practices in a community suddenly frozen in time. The pugillares discovered at Herculaneum are a unique example worldwide of this type of wax tablet. As their name indicates, from Latin pugnus meaning “fist,” they are a narrow, elongated format, comparable to modern smartphones, designed to be easily handled and carried while on the street or traveling, for taking ephemeral notes that could later be processed and possibly transferred to other media at home. In particular, we were able to carry out a first examination of an exceptional optoptych — a polyptych of eight leaves — which Giovanni Pugliese Carratelli first published in the 1950s, and which will be thoroughly studied within our project. It was fantastic to witness Georgios Boudalis’ joy at seeing this piece in person for the first time, after having prepared a constructive replica for his masterful exhibition The Codex and Crafts in Late Antiquity at the Bard Graduate Center in 2018! 

The Pompeian archive, on the other hand, is extraordinary in its completeness: 154 tablets, meticulously inscribed, that record commercial transactions and loans managed by L. Caecilius Iucundus between 27 and 62 AD. These tablets once rested inside a wooden chest kept in an upper room of the house. Yet when excavators uncovered the house, the archive had shifted from its original position and was found near the entrance to the oecus, the room opening onto the northern side of the peristyle — its final location shaped by the dramatic events of the eruption. 

Together, these collections form an exceptional ensemble. Their preservation not only allows the reconstruction of economic and social networks but also provides insight into the physical realities of writing in the Roman world: the materials, the gestures, and the everyday use of wooden tablets as essential tools for communication and record-keeping.

Research, preservation, and dissemination

During our work we also had the opportunity to meet the recently appointed Director of the National Archaeological Museum of Naples, Francesco Sirano, who underscored the crucial importance of conservation and the need for documentation that can be made openly accessible — material that is at once academically rigorous and genuinely useful to the wider community. His remarks highlighted a central challenge for museums today: how to safeguard fragile heritage while ensuring that knowledge derived from it circulates freely beyond institutional walls.

Conservation issues were further explored in conversations with Maria Teresa Operetto (Conservation and Restoration) and Floriana Miele (Head of the Coin Cabinet), whose long-standing experience within the National Museum provided the research team with an invaluable, in-depth overview of the collection and its many complexities. Their insights illuminated not only the technical difficulties involved in preserving such a vast and diverse heritage, but also the broader responsibility of caring for objects that continue to shape our understanding of the ancient world.

 

Michele Stefanile also played an important role in guiding the selection of material within the museum’s storerooms. His support in navigating the deposits, together with the historical, archaeological, and cultural context he provided throughout the process, helped the team better understand each artefact within its original setting. His contribution was valuable both for identifying the materials most suitable for study and for framing them within their broader background.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Not Just Wax: A Public Lecture on Ancient Writing Supports

In the afternoon, after concluding the research and documentation session at the museum, Georgios Boudalis delivered a public lecture at the University of Naples ‘L’Orientale’ entitled “Wax Tablet Codices and the Evolution of the Papyrus Codex: Insights from Established and Recent Findings”. As we describe in another post, Georgios managed to combine in an extremely insightful and thought-provoking way an original reappraisal of the specific aspects linking wax tablet technology to the invention of the codex in Late Antiquity with a presentation of that simply fascinating accessory, the stylus holder for wax tablets, he rediscovered and discusses in detail in his contribution to the newly published volume Erasing and Rewriting in Manuscript Cultures. We look forward to continuing our exploration of wax tablet technology in collaboration with him as part of the TabulaRasa project!

 

On 23 October, the study of the selected tablets continued, with Andreas Krupa focused on identifying wood species and construction techniques; Ester Ferreira on microscopic analysis, particularly of carbonised wax residues often preserved where the tablet seals once were and along the edges of the recessed writing surfaces; Georgios Boudalis and Brent Nongbri on more strictly codicological aspects; and Lucia Colella and Daniele Ferraiuolo on methods for studying and documenting the originals, also with a view to creating a unified documentation protocol for use within the project. Alongside some tablets from the Caecilius Iucundus archive, previously subjected to restoration, and finds with traces of stitching and sealing, the team also examined the well-known Poppea Note tablet (CIL IV 3340,155). This document, discovered on 20 September 1887 together with other tablets in Pompeii, had been found wrapped within a “cloth” along with silver vessels and wooden fragments. Like many other examples in the Vesuvian corpora, this tablet also contains a legal text; however, unlike all the other tablets preserved in the museum, in this case the wood did not carbonise, and the inscribed wax layer therefore did not melt but remained incredibly well preserved and legible, most likely thanks to the specific micro-context in which it was found at the moment of the eruption, as well as to the cloth that, according to the discoverers, wrapped it – a circumstance that at the same time poses a challenge for the conservation of this extremely fragile artefact. This remarkably special tablet is also slated for in-depth study within the project.

 

Discussions were also held with Maria Teresa Operetto, Head of Conservation and Restoration at MANN, regarding the sampling of wax, in accordance with the agreement established with the museum. In the afternoon, the core team of TabulaRasa, joined by Barbara Liguori from the partner University of Naples Federico II, met to review past, present and future activities in the ERC space at Palazzo Giusso (and enjoy some chocolate… :))

 

On 24 October, Ester Ferreira carried out a micro-sampling of wax fragments from the Poppea Note tablet in order to perform chemical analyses using gas chromatography (GC) at the laboratories of TH Cologne. Also, we were joined by archaeologists Angela Bosco and Rosario Valentini who performed RTI (Reflectance Transformation Imaging) documentation tests on selected specimens. We look forward to further exploring imaging techniques applied to carbonised wax tablets and to understanding how they can shed light on the technological features of this medium, well beyond their established role in helping epigraphists decipher writing traces!

“Returning Home”… A Morning in Ancient Herculaneum

Returning Home? Absolutely.
On the 25th, the research team walked the streets of the ancient city of Herculaneum, exploring the places where the wax tablets were discovered to better understand the unique conditions of the site — above all, its extraordinary preservation of wooden and organic materials.

One of the most striking moments of the visit was the stop at Casa del Bicentenario, named in 1937 to mark the two-hundredth anniversary of the beginning of excavations at Herculaneum. It was here that an archive of around 150 wax tablets was found, belonging to Calatoria Themis, the wife of C. Petronius Stephanus. The tablets, together with a papyrus roll, had been stored inside a carbonised wooden box on the upper floor. As with many Vesuvian examples, their contents relate to legal matters.

Equally memorable was the visit to the Casa del Salone Nero, where numerous fragments of wax tablets came to light in 1939. Originally kept on a painted wooden shelf on the house’s second floor, these documents are linked to Lucius Venidius Ennychus, likely the last owner of the property. In one of the tablets, he records that on 24 June 60 AD his daughter, little Venidia, was born. Nearly two millennia later, that moment – intimate, ordinary and profoundly human – resurfaces from the volcanic ash.

These are tiny traces of individual lives – moments, names, and relationship – miraculously preserved within the burning mud and ash, and brought back to us nearly two thousand years later. Every name, every line of writing, every sliver of wood brings back a story that might otherwise have been lost forever. Together, they allow us to reconstruct stories from a community abruptly silenced, yet still speaking through these fragile remnants.

This first mission to the Archaeological Museum of Naples was enriched not only by the extraordinary Vesuvian heritage, but above all by the spirit of collaboration within the team: the shared sense of wonder, the enthusiasm, and the collective engagement with the complex challenges posed by this research. It also strengthened our commitment to opening new avenues of study, ones that hopefully will, little by little, offer fresh perspectives on the past.

 

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