The words that almost died of being found
Some words survive nineteen hundred years by being unread. Under Vindolanda, a Roman fort in Britain, airless mud kept thin wooden leaves from rotting.
In March 1973 they came up like wood shavings. Two stuck slivers were peeled apart: writing inside. Air hit them, and they began turning black. They had survived burial for centuries. Now they were dying of being found.
By the time the epigraphist looked, they were black and unreadable. A camera saved them. Alison Rutherford, of Newcastle University's medical school, shot them in infrared and pulled the writing back out of the dark. The cursive was an unknown hand until Alan Bowman and David Thomas cracked it.
The words that nearly died twice were this. Around the year 100, Claudia Severa sent Sulpicia Lepidina, the fort commander's wife, a birthday invitation. A scribe wrote the body. The last words are in her hand, one of the earliest known examples of writing in Latin by a woman: “my dearest soul.”
Among supply lists and duty rosters, what still gets quoted is a woman who would not let a scribe say goodbye for her. Nineteen hundred years on, she is still expecting her friend.