Copper alloy and iron stylus
Roman, about AD 180-220
Found during excavations by Winchester Museums Service Archaeology Section at Victoria Road, Winchester in the mid- to late 1970s
This elegant iron stylus has two collars and encircling inlaid bands of brass separating the shank from the tip and the eraser. As paper was expensive, it would have been used with a wax and wood tablet, wooden leaves strung together and coated with wax to make a writing surface.
Contact with the classical world towards the end of the Iron Age period introduced real literacy to Britain, at first in the form of literate inscriptions on Iron Age coins. By the later 2nd or early 3rd century, when this stylus was made, literacy was widespread- writing materials are not confined to villas, or tribal capitals like Winchester but are found on all types of site.
