2,000-year-old birthday invite shows earliest known Latin written

A wooden tablet that has the earliest known example of Latin written by a woman, Claudia Severa, has been found.

The invite, written over 2,000 years ago between AD 97 to 103, was a birthday invitation for her friend Sulpicia Lepidina. 

The letter was found at Vindolanda, a Roman fort, where oxygen-free soil helped in preserving numerous organic artifacts, including shoes and camping equipment, that would have disintegrated and decomposed over the years, according to LiveScience. 

The small tablet is 8.8 by 3.8 inches (22.3 by 9.6 centimetres) and the invite on it was written with carbon-based ink on both sides.

On one side of the letter, names of both the writer and the recipient on it and reads: “To Sulpicia Lepidina, wife of Cerialis, from [Claudia] Severa,” as per the British Museum, where the object is being kept.

“Claudia Severa to her Lepidina, greetings. On September 11, sister, for the day of the celebration of my birthday, I give you a warm invitation to make sure that you come to us, to make the day more enjoyable for me by your arrival, if you are present. Give my greetings to your [husband, Flavius] Cerialis. My [husband] Aelius [Brocchus] and my little son send him their greetings,” reads the other side of the party invite.

The letter was most likely written by a scribe in a slim and neat handwriting but at the lower-right corner of the tablet, Claudia herself writes in a less-elegant script that: “I shall expect you, sister. Farewell, sister, my dearest soul, as I hope to prosper, and hail”.