Podcast/Press Release: Virtual world illuminates Roman tablet

"Researchers from across Europe have made an extraordinary discovery about a 2000 year old Roman tablet using new technology funded by JISC. The wooden tablet, previously believed to describe the sale of an ox, has proved instead to show a receipt for a slave’s repayment of a cash loan to the wife of a Roman military officer - and researchers have been able to accurately date it to February 23, 29 AD. The breakthrough came after researchers at Oxford University in the UK used medical imaging techniques to reveal more detail than ever before - as part of a project funded by JISC and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council. Professor Alan Bowman, project manager, said: 'This was a huge surprise to us to discover that this kind of legal text exists in this area because the area of Friesia in the modern Netherlands was very much at the fringes of the Roman Empire. This is also a very striking demonstration of how the non-Roman populations were brought into the Roman army and the legal and social framework'"