Ordinary Words Become Extraordinary

July 3, 2013

As I have written here before, I believe in the importance of the written word and its role in our history, whether the author is a famous leader or a woman writing a birthday invitation.

Two weeks ago in England, I had a chance to see an example of such a birthday invitation, written in Latin, found at Vindolanda, the site of a Roman fort. The fort, first settled in 80 A.D., guarded the northernmost frontier of the Roman Empire in England and housed soldiers and their families.

When Claudia Severa wrote the words, “I shall expect you sister. Farewell, sister my dearest soul, as I hope to prosper, and hail,” to Suplicia Lepidina, she could never have imagined that 1900 years later so many people would see them and learn so much from the tiny wooden tablet they were written on. Historians have gained a much better understanding of how the people at Vindolanda lived from the hundreds of additional tablets they found at this site that predates Hadrian’s Wall by about forty years.

Whether written on wood or paper, words from everyday individuals become part of the human story, a touchstone to the past. Will electronic documents have the same impact as something tactile like wood or paper? I am not sure. I find looking at, and in some cases holding, an old journal to be incredibly personal and wonderful. But one thing is certain, whatever medium we use, we must choose our words carefully, as Claudia did. Who knows who might see them hundreds of years from now?