Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 April 2021
This article analyzes the presence of writing instruments dating to the 2nd–1st c. BCE at several archaeological sites of the northeastern Iberian peninsula (current Catalonia), attempting to assess their historical, social, and economic interest. The evidence of the ancient literary sources, as well as the archaeological contexts in which these objects appeared, allow us to interpret these writing instruments as part of the mechanisms of control and recordkeeping deployed by Rome in this territory during the long and complex process of conquest.