Archaeologists tried in vain to unlock the secrets of life in first century Britain. But by using a high resolution camera a team of Oxford University scientists and historians has gained a glimpse into everyday Roman activities, from shopping to a contract freeing a slave. The tablets, on display at the Science Museum in London, date from AD85-125 and were excavated at a site at Hadrian's Wall in the 1970s.
Some tablets list the food and clothes required by Roman garrisons.
They reveal that life was far from easy for the average soldier protecting the northern frontier from marauding Picts. Other essential items included radishes, quantities of human hair, necklace clasps and vehicle axles. Another tablet describes a recruitment drive to persuade members of the Anavionenses tribe, who lived around the Annan river in south-west Scotland, to join the army. Another is a contract releasing a slave to work elsewhere in the empire as a free man. You are always going to find something new or unusual.