2000-year-old birthday invitation is the oldest Latin text written by a woman

The wooden tablet was found in the United Kingdom and was partially written by a scribe and an aristocratic woman.

A wooden tablet found in England contains the oldest Latin written by a woman, almost 2000 years agobetween 97 and 103 AD Found in the Roman fort of Vindolanda, where other important discoveries about the time were made, the artifact shows the wealth and sophistication of an ancient Roman woman, who invited a great friend to her birthday.

In Vindolanda, in present-day northern Britain, Northumbria, the anaerobic soil — that is, without oxygen — preserved a number of organic items that would not be preserved on common ground, ranging from shoes to camping gear, sex toys and even obscene vandalism with an ancient insult.

The “wooden postcard” measures 22.3 by 9.6 centimeters and is as thin as a wafer, but it says a lot about the past. In it, a likely aristocrat called Claudia Severa invited her friend Sulpicia Lepidina to her birthday party. The curious thing is the two instances of conversation in written Roman language.

On one side, the letter contains sender and recipient: “To Sulpicia Lepidina, wife of Cerialis, of [Claudia] Severe.” On the other side, there is the invitation itself, translated by the British Museum:

“Claudia Severa to your Lepidina, greetings. On September 11th, sister, for the day of my birthday celebration, I extend to you a warm invitation to ensure that you come to us, to make the day more pleasant for me for your arrival, if you are present. Give my regards to your [marido, Flávio] Cereal My [marido] Aelius [Brocchus] and my little son sends you his greetings.”

The text was probably dictated to a scribe to write it down, which was done in an elegant, thin font. Another cursive style, however, in the bottom left corner, Claudia Severa herself wrote another invitation, which reads:

“I must wait for you, sister. Farewell, sister, my dearest soul, which I hope to prosper, and I acclaim.” Severa was clearly literate and could write herself, as the fragment makes clear, but her social status allowed her to pay a scribe to write for her.

At least 1,700 inscribed tablets have been found at Vindolanda since the first, discovered in 1973. They generally reflect the lives of the families of Roman soldiers stationed along Hadrian’s Wall in northern England.