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Writing in Roman Britain and Continental Europe: A Comparative Analysis of Styli Found in London

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 June 2023

Alessia Colombo
Alessia Colombo*
Affiliation:
University College London [email protected]
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Abstract

This paper investigates Roman writing habits through the evidence of metal styli. An assemblage of more than 400 styli from London constitutes the basis of the analysis, which explores their similarities with examples from other sites in Britain and continental Europe during the Imperial period. The geographical and social distribution of styli suggests that certain types were employed or made in specific locations by different social actors, and that the major political and military centres of the Empire shared a common material culture of writing. The analysis also suggests that styli types of the northern European regions possibly developed from ‘military styli’ brought by soldiers and bureaucrats during the conquest.

Keywords

styliwritingliteracyRoman Londonwriting materialsmaterial culturesocial distributiongeographical distribution
Type
Articles
Information
Britannia , Volume 54 , November 2023 , pp. 113 - 136
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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Footnotes

*

This paper is based on the author's MA dissertation, Institute of Archaeology, University College London (2020).

References

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