Wax Tablets

Prior to the advent of the last centuries, paper/parc hment was a commodity that was used with care. It could be expensive and difficult to get, and so what one had one generally used for final products. However, poetry has to be composed, letters have to be drafted, and even to-do lists have to kept. What, then, did an educated person prior to 1600 use to collect his or her thoughts?

Most people in the SCA are familiar with the wax tablet or tables. Around the beginning of the 16th century, another sort of table became popular.

This table consisted of a series of parchment sheets coated with gesso and bound into a booklet. This could be written upon with ink or metalpoint and subsequent ly cleaned with a damp cloth, sponge, or even fingertip once the informatio n was no longer needed.

Disguising a modern PDA as a wax tablet.

Cotswold Museum Service cares for around one and a half million archaeolog ical and social history objects in the Council&#3 9;s collection s. Many of the objects are displayed at the recently refurbishe d and extended Corinium Museum, Cirenceste r.

See The Collection s to search for items.

Some highlights in the history of waxed tablets.

Some links and notes on wax tablets.

Manuscript production in Anglo-Saxon England.

Spoons, Ligulae, and Forks; Lamps and Candlesticks; Steelyards, Balances, and Measures; Bells; Objects Used in Games; Spindles, Needles, and Netting-tools; Strigils; Oculists' Stamps; Writing Appliances and Seal Boxes

With over 7,000 inventory numbers and more than 10,000 individual fragments, this collection is one of the largest of its type in the world. Through this site we hope to provide access to our collection, as well as to numerous other papyrological resources, for researchers, students, and the general public.

The website contains a variety of resources for learning about papyrology and the history of other ancient writing materials.

The tablets, descriptions of their content and the contexts in which they were found.

Depictions of waxed tablets in art as well as extant related artifacts (panels and stylii).