| Waxed diptychs. |
Waxed diptychs.These tablets were commonly about ten to fourteen inches in length by about half that in width. The main surface of each tablet was sunk from ⅛ to 1⁄10 of an inch in depth to receive the wax layer, leaving a rim all round about the size of that round a modern school-boy's slate. The object of this was that two of these tablets might be placed together face to face without danger of rubbing and obliterating the writing on the wax, which was applied in a very thin coat, not more than 1⁄16 of an inch in thickness. As a rule these tablets were fastened together in pairs by stout loops of leather or cord. These double tablets were called by the Greeks πίνακες πτυκτοὶ or δίπτυχα (from δίς and πτύσσω) and by the Romans pugillares or codicilli. Homer (Il. VI. 168) mentions a letter written on folding tablets—
πόρεν δ' ὅ γε σήματα λυγρά
Γράψας ἐν πίνακι πτυκτῷ.
| Tablets on coins and gems. |
Tablets on coins and gems.Representations of these folding tablets occur frequently both in Greek and in Roman art, as, for example on various Sicilian coins, where the artist's name is placed in minute letters on a double tablet, which in some cases, as on a tetradrachm of Himera, is held open by a flying figure of Victory.
A gem of about 400 B.C., a large scarabaeoid in chalcedony, recently acquired by the British Museum, is engraved with a seated figure of a lady holding a book consisting of four leaves; she is writing lengthwise on one leaf, while the other three hang down from their hinge.
Some of the beautiful terra-cotta statuettes from the tombs of the Boeotian Tanagra represent a girl reading from a somewhat similar double folding tablet.
On Greek vases and in Roman mural paintings the pugillares are frequently shown, though the roll form of manuscript is on the whole more usual.
| Tablets from tombs. |