They were discovered in 1928 by local miners in a cache on the estate of Jabal Mrata near the Algeria–Tunisia border, just south of ancient Theveste and beyond the southern frontier of the Vandal Kingdom.
[6] The tablets are presently conserved at the National Museum of Antiquities and Islamic Art in Algiers, Algeria.
The place where the documents were found is Saharan pre-desert at the limit of the cultivable zone and of permanent human settlement.
[5] The tablets show that in the Vandal period arboriculture (including of olive) and floodwater irrigation were practised in the area.
[4] Besides agriculture, the tablets reveal the legal, social and economic practices in and on the fringes of the Vandal Kingdom.