Talk:Vindolanda tablets

Vindolanda tablets has been listed as one of the History good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it.

Article milestones
Date	Process	Result
March 3, 2011	Good article nominee	Listed

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Military history: Historiography / British / European / Roman & Byzantine / Classical

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Feb 2011 peer review

Roman Civilizations

-article seems a little short, -maybe you could expand on the history of the tablets, ie: how they were compilled. -you might want to add a picture to your page Diana Nielsen —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Dnielsen8 (talk • contribs) 20:53, 15 May 2007 (UTC).[reply]

Good documentation and very informative. Clear, simple, and to the point makes an effective article.

Looking good billy, i think you can be a little more specific though. But besides for that I like it. -Charles

Changed to Start class

This is a good topic and has been sufficiently expanded and sourced to rise above Stub level. I removed the article's Stub markers, and changed the Stub markers here to Start. SteveStrummer (talk) 22:46, 24 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Not the earliest letter written by a woman

In the article it says that this may be the earliest letter written by a woman. No source is given for this claim. However, in the article on Zannanza (a Hittite prince) a letter is quoted which was written by the queen of Egypt in the 14th century BC. So I suggest that the claim that one of the Vindolanda tablets was the earliest ever written by a woman should be deleted. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.212.78.220 (talk) 22:16, 17 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The current phrasing is accurate, i.e. one of the earliest in Latin. Fæ (talk) 19:33, 8 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Vindolanda tablets/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: – Peacock.Lane 00:26, 25 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

No page numbers for Bowman quotes. Please check cites/refs for inconsistencies. – Peacock.Lane 00:26, 25 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I have asked for loans of the relevant books, so I should be able to verify page numbers in a day or two. Fæ (talk) 10:59, 25 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Sounds good. Let me know when things get straightened out. Please do check for copy/paste when you get that text as well. – Peacock.Lane 12:54, 25 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
- Y All the citations now have page numbers. Fæ (talk) 18:10, 1 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure that referring to Carlisle in the lede is appropriate. In fact, at times the lede seems to veer off into talking about British tablets in general rather than the Virolanda ones. This is quite natural, but may not be the best approach. Is there a parent article for this sort of tablet? If not, I suppose these bits of info can be moved into body text – but I think the majority of the info in the lede should be specific to the Virolanda texts. Perhaps some key facts are missing...? No mention of the correspondence & female Latin handwriting, forex. Other historical significance? etc. – Peacock.Lane 02:29, 25 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
- Y Appears to have been suitably re-written (by others) since the comment was raised. Carlisle is referred to later in the text but the prose is relatively modest and add reasonable context. Fæ (talk) 18:34, 1 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The bit about the "restitutionist premise" (see Art repatriation): is it really relevant here? I mean, we are going from one museum in Britain to another, right? – Peacock.Lane 02:39, 25 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
- Y Agreed, after checking the sources there is no mention of Vindolanda and the international issues involved do not appear to fit the situation here. I have removed the text but left the information about the planned on-site exhibition of tablets. Fæ (talk) 18:34, 1 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
- I accept Fæ's amendment removing reference to restitutionalism. While I also accept that my mention of the Lindisfarne Gospels was too off-topic, it may be that when tablets return to the site, something appears in the press about the north east's "claim" to its treasures, so I think that regional sensitivities might be looked at again in the future. Alan (talk) 19:31, 1 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  - Thanks for the feedback. As with any potentially controversial statement, we would need to ensure we stick to the sources and I would have no problem with such an addition as the sources become available. Fæ (talk) 22:18, 1 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
"with which we are familiar" Who are "we"? Also the grammar is a bit overly formal... In fact, I'm afraid I must add that the passages from Bowman smell suspiciously like copy/paste. Is that the case?
- Y Transcription section re-written to avoid any issue with cut & paste and now includes Birley's book as an additional source. Fæ (talk) 22:41, 1 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
the licensing on the images seems OK (to the best of my ability to determine). – Peacock.Lane 03:36, 25 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Have done some copy editing, including a complete reorganization/rewrite of the lede. More tomorrow. – Peacock.Lane 09:43, 3 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Chronology

If the letters were written during periods 2 and 3 shouldn't the dates be from AD92 to AD103 and not AD92 to AD13088.104.85.96 (talk) 17:35, 18 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Update

In the last couple of years there have been some update to the Vindolanda Tablets. Bowman has published some more and the Centre for the Study of Ancient Documents at University of Oxford has published a newer version of the Vindolanda Tablets Online publication which includes the newest material in a more interactive way. Digital Humanities research has also been done using the tablets as examples. I would like to update this article to reflect this. Summæ (talk) 06:55, 4 June 2013 (UTC) 09:29, 4 April 2013 (UTC)) I have added this now Summæ (talk) 06:55, 4 June 2013 (UTC) 11:50, 3 June 2013 (UTC) OK, so I've just realised that I'm probably too close to the Vindolanda Tablets projects to actually be editing this article - could one of the other regular editors please check through my changes? I have already removed what I thought was a bit biased. Sorry! Summæ (talk) 06:55, 4 June 2013 (UTC) 12:51, 3 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Link to de.wikipedia.org

The Article on Vindolanda in the German WP has a section on the tablets. I don't know how to add the link, here is it: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kastell_Vindolanda#Vindolanda-Tafeln 194.174.73.33 (talk) 19:11, 19 December 2014 (UTC) Marco Pagliero Berlin[reply]

Note well

The Tablets date to AD 92-103. Hadrian's Wall was constructed AD 122-128. These documents predate Hadrian's Wall. I've had to correct this obvious mistake in the article, & will address this elsewhere. -- llywrch (talk) 14:48, 4 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Tidied refs

as they had red on. Not too hot on harvnb though so used sfnKeith-264 (talk) 20:55, 21 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Update needed

Apparently, older handwritten documents have recently been discovered in London, see e.g. this Guardian article. So, the article needs updating (we don't have an article for the newly discovered tablets yet, I think?) Gestumblindi (talk) 21:59, 5 June 2016 (UTC) PS: Oh, we do, I see: Bloomberg tablets. Gestumblindi (talk) 22:01, 5 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

could someone

clarify why Birley is credited with "discovery" when Lidell was the one who found them? From what I understand, it is common in archeology to ignore the people actually doing the work, or should I say "depreciate"?, but this somewhat dishonest quirk deserves at least a footnote about 'common practice'.IMHO.72.16.99.93 (talk) 15:13, 27 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Brittunculi

"Until the discovery of the tablets, historians could only speculate on whether the Romans had a nickname for the Britons."

Why would historians speculate on that? Are they also speculating on nicknames for Parthians, Germans, Dacians etc.? And on Parthian, Dacian etc. nicknames for the Romans? Perhaps we could have a sample speculation referenced here? Otherwise I suspect it's just bad writing. 2A02:AA1:1626:903F:AD26:6255:B576:F4A9 (talk) 21:18, 29 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Challenges: cos?

"Additional challenges for transcription are the use of abbreviations such as "h" for homines (men) or "cos" for consularis (consular), and the arbitrary division of words at the end of lines for space reasons such as epistulas (letters) being split between the "e" and the rest of the word."

This sounds as if abbreviations and weird line breaks are unusual features, but they are standard Roman practise. No classicist could possibly consider "cos" a "challenge". The "epistulas" example given sounds completely unproblematic (also "epistulas" is not the plural of "epistula"). There must be much better examples of transcription difficulties. 2A02:AA1:1626:903F:AD26:6255:B576:F4A9 (talk) 21:34, 29 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]