An Expert Pieced Together This Roman Document Like a Jigsaw Puzzle. You’ll Never Guess What It’s About
Classics researchers think it was part of a reference booklet traveling officials carried with them The post An Expert Pieced Together This Roman Document Like a Jigsaw Puzzle. You’ll Never Guess What It’s About appeared first on Nautilus .
A 1,600-year-old parchment, painstakingly reassembled by University of Cincinnati Classics Professor Matthijs Wibier, has been found to contain laws related to taxes. This double-sided document, now pieced together from 50 fragments, was likely carried by traveling officials and wealthy landowners or their lawyers. The text mainly covers the public road system and the citizens' contributions to its upkeep, including the provision of grain for food stores.
The parchment is believed to date back to the reigns of emperors Constantius II and Julian the Apostate, between 337 and 363 AD. The discovery is significant as many texts from that period have been lost, making the reconstruction and translation efforts particularly valuable.
Written by urgent.news from Nautilus's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
