What is Vindolanda?
[[File:Vindolanda bathhouse - 2007-05-19.jpg|thumb|right|250px|Military bathhouse at Vindolanda.]] [[File:Roman writing tablet 02.jpg|thumb|Vindolanda tablets]] '''Vindolanda'''<ref>The name is Celtic meaning something like 'fair/blessed'-'enclosure/meadow/prairie/grassy plain': Old Gaelic ''Fiondland''.</ref> was a [[Roman Empire|Roman]] [[fort]] at [[Chesterholm]], just south of [[Hadrian's Wall]] in northern [[England]]. Near the modern border with [[Scotland]], it guarded the [[Stanegate]], the [[Roman roads in Britain|Roman road]] from the [[River Tyne]] to the [[Solway Firth]]. It is noted for the '''Vindolanda tablets''', one of the most important find of military and private correspondence (written on wooden tablets) found anywhere in the [[Roman Empire]]. == The Vindolanda tablets == The Vindolanda tablets are fragments of wooden leaf-tablets with writing in [[carbon]]-based [[ink]]. They were found at Vindolanda in northern England.<ref>Bowman A.K. 2003 [1998] ''Life and letters on the Roman frontier: Vindolanda and its people''. London: British Museum Press.</ref> The tablets date from the first and second centuries [[AD]], which makes them roughly [[wikt:contemporary|contemporary]] with Hadrian's Wall, which is near Vindolanda. The tablets contain messages to and from members of the [[garrison]] of Vindolanda, their families, and their [[slave]]s. Similar records on [[papyrus]] were known from elsewhere in the [[Roman Empire]], but wooden tablets had not been recovered until archaeologist Robin Birley discovered them at Vindolanda in 1973.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/online_tours/britain/our_top_ten_british_treasures/the_vindolanda_tablets.aspx |title=britishmuseum.org |access-date=2010-09-07 |archive-date=2011-09-05 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110905200124/http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/online_tours/britain/our_top_ten_british_treasures/the_vindolanda_tablets.aspx |url-status=dead }}</ref> Pages have since been found at [[Carlisle]] in [[Cumbria]],