Vindolanda Tablets - Imaging

Imaging

The tablets were photographed using infra-red sensitive cameras in 1973 by Susan M. Blackshaw in the British Museum and more comprehensively in 1990 at Vindolanda by Alison Rutherford. The tablets were scanned again using improved techniques in 2000–2001 with a Kodak Wratten 87C infra-red filter. The photographs are taken in infra-red to enhance the faded ink against the wood of the tablets, or between ink and dirt, to make the writing more visible.

The images, at a resolution suitable for web page display, and text of the tablets were published on-line. There are plans to publish recent transcriptions along with the material from Tab.Vindol. III (Bowman 2003), to the Vindolanda Tablets On-line.

In 2002 the tablet images were used as part of a research programme to extend the use of the GRAVA iterative computer vision system to aid the transcription of the Vindolanda tablets through a series of processes modelled on the best practice of papyrologists and to provide the images in an XML marked up format identifying the likely placement of characters and words with their transcription.