The Bloomberg tablets are a collection of 405 preserved wooden tablets that were found at the site of the Bloomberg building in the financial district of London. Excavations of the site took place between 2010 and 2013, after which the current Bloomberg building was constructed atop the archeological dig. The tablets are unique in that they are the earliest written documents found in Britain, dating from 50-80AD in the early Roman period. Notably, these tablets predate the Vindolanda tablets, which were previously the earliest writing examples found in Britain, dating to 100AD or later.
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Excavation Site
The Bloomberg site consists of three acres in the financial district of London. The archeological site was previously discovered as the site of the Temple of Mithras, which was partially excavated in the 1950's, but this effort was incomplete, and the Bucklersbury building was built atop the site in 1953. However, when the Bucklersbury building was demolished in 2010, this afforded archeologists a chance to reopen the dig. Between 2010 and 2013, a multitude of artifacts were discovered at the site, including the Bloomberg tablets, discovered buried 40 feet underground.
Tablet Condition
The Bloomberg tablets were an unexpected find, as organic material such as wood and leather tends to rot away and disintegrate with time. The tablets were preserved by the thick, wet mud generated by the underground river Walbrook. The mud limited the exposure of the tablets to oxygen.
Tablet Construction
The tablets were originally made of wood and wax, though only the wood was preserved and recoverable. A typical tablet would have been made of a thin piece of wood, 15–25 cm wide, with a rectangular depression carved into the center. Warm, blackened beeswax would then be poured into the center depression and allowed to cool. Once the wax has set, a metal stylus would be used to scratch letters into the wax. These wax tablets could also be recycled, in that the tablet could be heated (to approximately 50 degrees C), allowing the wax to soften and reform a smooth writing surface. The tablets were likely made from wood recycled from barrels, and often were made in diptych style, where two tablets were loosely linked and could fold together to close, like a book with only two pages, protecting the soft wax on the inside.
Recreation
Although the wax from the tablets was not preserved, small scratches left on the surface of the wooden tablets allowed for a recreation of the original writing content. These scratches, though perhaps not identifiable with the naked eye, can be visualized and digitally recreated with the assistance of technology. In order to make the digital recreation of the writing, photographs were taken using different angles of light and thus casting different shadows upon the tablet surface. Once compiled, these pictures gave a precise view of the surface contours of the tablets, the impressions made in the wood, and thus a look at what was written on the tablet. However, since these tablets were made to be reusable, several overlapping messages may be present on the tablets, making it even more difficult to separate and translate the many messages.
Translation
Thus far, 87 of the Bloomberg tablets have been translated. This is the highest number of translated artifacts from any archeological site in London, surpassing the previous record of 19. The tablets were deciphered by Dr. Roger Tomlin, an expert in Roman cursive, the writing style that the tablets were written in. Tablets vary in content, including the oldest financial document from the city of London (dating to the 8th of January, 57AD), legal documents including a judge calling a pretrial hearing, and educational material. One tablet shows the alphabet written out, indicating the presence of perhaps the first school in Britain. Additionally, among the tablets there are over 100 names of people of all different professions and social classes who lived in London at the time, such as slaves, merchants, soldiers, and politicians. One prominent figure that is named is Julius Classicus, who was a commander in the Roman auxiliaries. However, one of the most interesting tablets that was found was one that contains the first mention of the name of the city of London, more than a half a century earlier than what was previously thought to be the first naming of London in Tacitus's Annals.
Preservation
Although current technology and methods have allowed for recreation and translation for a number of the tablets, the vast majority of them remain as-of-yet unreadable. Thus, in order to keep these tablets in prime shape for future analysis, great efforts are being made to keep these artifacts preserved. Preservation included a combination of immersion in polyethylene glycol (PEG) and freeze drying.
Tablet Display
While some of the tablets are being preserved for future study, a number of them will be displayed in a museum exhibit entitled “London Mithraeum” located on the first two floors of the Bloomberg European Headquarters, once the building construction is completed (completion date set as autumn 2017).