Tolsum writing tablet

In 1914, laborers digging in the "terp" (artificial dwelling hill) of Tolsum in the northern part of the Netherlands found a wooden writing-tablet. Because the people who had once used it, had pressed their stilus very hard, the letters could still be read as scratches in the wood, even though the original layer of wax has vanished long time ago.

The first scholar who tried to read it, C.W. Vollgraff, believed it was a contract about the sale of a cow, and dated it to the year 116 CE. Although his reading has become accepted and can be found in the Fontes Iuris Romani Antejustiniani (FIRA), there have always been serious doubts.