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Roman Britain

Vindolanda

Near Bardon Mill, Northumberland

Where Roman letters written on wooden tablets survived for 2,000 years.

Vindolanda was a Roman fort just south of Hadrian's Wall. In waterlogged ground, archaeologists have found hundreds of thin wooden writing tablets, the oldest surviving handwritten documents in Britain.

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When
From AD 85
Where
54.9910, -2.3600
Group
Roman Britain

Visiting

Open daily, with a museum. Volunteers dig in summer.

Cover of The Ledger of Lost Britain by Cale Mills
Read the full story in the book

The Ledger of Lost Britain

The Romans arrived in AD 43. For most people that is where the history of Britain begins. But by the time the legions landed, people had already been living on these islands for thousands of years. They had hunted, farmed, mined flint, dragged stones across the country, raised a hill by hand, and buried their dead in great tombs. They left no written words. What they left was the ground itself. Every place in this book can be visited, or has been dug up, or is in a museum.

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