Stylus forged from brass
This beautifully shaped antique stylus is forged from brass and handmade in the Forum Traiani Roman store. It lies cool in the hand when writing - just like the ancient Romans. You can also find the matching beeswax tablets on these pages of the Roman Shop. And the journey into the ancient writing experience can begin! The pointed end of the stylus, stilus in Latin, carves the letters or numbers into the beeswax of the ancient tablet.
The flat side of the antique stylus serves as a kind of eraser to smooth out the scratched writing in order to write on the tablet again or in case a mistake creeps in! Children can also be introduced to writing in this way. Because writing with the antique stylus is a real experience!
Scribere: The ancient stylus gave writing the word!
Incidentally, writing, scriban in Old High German, comes from the Latin word scribere, which means to scratch on a tablet with a stylus. The word refers to the recording of characters, letters, numbers or musical notes. Writing is an elementary cultural technique and the history of writing is inextricably linked to the history of writing.
- Pen length approx. 12 cm
- Hand-forged stylus based on an ancient model
Ancient writing techniques - scribing with the ancient stylus
A variety of writing techniques already existed in antiquity. For example, chiseling in stone, carving with a stylus or stylus in wax tablets or clay and writing with an ancient stylus with ink on palm leaves, papyrus, parchment and paper. Until the invention of printing, writing with a stylus was the only way to record language on a medium. In ancient times, the ability to write was so valuable that an entire profession, the ancient scribes, made a living from it.
Writing in Europe - the stylus of the Romans
The basis of European writing is the Greek script, from which the Latin script, the Cyrillic script and ultimately the runes developed. The ancient stylus was used here - on all writing materials and in various versions. The Romans inherited the Greek alphabet from the Etruscans. However, they used shorter letters. In Latin, the distinction between upper and lower case letters only emerged during the Renaissance, when the humanists read Latin texts in Carolingian minuscules, presumably drawing on inscriptions on ancient Roman monuments.
Incised with a stylus or stylus
The stylus was usually round or square, made of iron, bronze, bone or occasionally silver. The tip of the stylus pressed into the wax to write. Mistakes could be corrected with the spatula-shaped end. The wax tablets could be written on again by smoothing the wax. Some Roman styluses have the shape of the bust of the goddess Minerva, as she was considered the patron goddess of teachers and poets in Roman times.
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