[1][2][3] Written on fragments of thin, postcard-sized wooden leaf-tablets with carbon-based ink, the tablets date to the 1st and 2nd centuries AD (roughly contemporary with Hadrian's Wall).

[1][4] The documents record official military matters as well as personal messages to and from members of the garrison of Vindolanda, their families, and their slaves.

Highlights of the tablets include an invitation to a birthday party held in about 100, which is perhaps the oldest surviving document written in Latin by a woman.

The use of ink tablets was documented in contemporary records; Herodian in the 3rd century describes "a writing-tablet of the kind that were made from lime-wood, cut into thin sheets and folded face-to-face by being bent".

They were sent to Alison Rutherford at Newcastle University Medical School for multi-spectrum photography, which led to infrared photographs showing the scripts for researchers for the first time.

The largest group is correspondence of Flavius Cerialis, prefect of the ninth cohort of Batavians and that of his wife, Sulpicia Lepidina.

The tablets are written in forms of Roman cursive script, considered to be the forerunner of joined-up writing, which varies in style by author.

The text rarely shows the unusual or distorted letter forms or the extravagant ligatures to be found in Greek papyri of the same period.

[14] The documents provide information about various roles performed by the men at the fort, such as a keeper of the bath-house, shoe-makers, construction workers, medical doctors, maintainers of wagons and kilns, and those put on plastering duty.

The best-known document is perhaps Tablet 291, written around 100 by Claudia Severa,[17] the wife of the commander of a nearby fort, to Sulpicia Lepidina, inviting her to a birthday party.

Brittunculi (diminutive of Britto; hence 'little Britons'), found on one of the Vindolanda tablets, is now known to be a derogatory, or patronising, term used by the Roman garrisons that were based in Northern Britain to describe the locals.

[23] One possibility, given the fragile condition of the tablets found at Vindolanda, is that archaeologists excavating other Roman sites have overlooked evidence of writing in ink.

In 1973, the tablets were photographed by Susan M. Blackshaw in the British Museum, using infrared sensitive cameras and, more comprehensively, in 1990 at Vindolanda, by Alison Rutherford.

[25] In 2002, the tablet images were used as part of a research programme to extend the use of the GRAVA iterative computer vision system,[26] 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.