648 MATERIALS TO WRITE UPON BEFORE INVENTION OF PRINTING. 



series of exploits." In Rome the use of coluinns and of tablets of 

 bronze for inscribing laws followed that of wood. A^\^ find in all the 

 museums of P^urope inscriptions upon metals (fig. 23). One of the 

 most remarkable is the famous bronze tablet preserved in the Museum 

 of Lyons, containing the address delivered in the year 48 by the 

 Emperor Claudius.'' 



Lead beaten thin and reduced to leaves served the same purpose. 

 Job laments his inability to Avrite a discourse upon sheets of lead. Li 

 Greece lead thus prepared was quite frequently used. Suetonius 

 terms these leaves of lead plumbea charta ; '^ tal)lets were also made 

 of it, which were employed all through the Middle Ages. 



Fig. 23. Gallic inscription iu clotted characters on 

 bronze fonud near Dijon. (Diet. Arch, de la Gaule.) 



It seems unnecessary to cite coins and medals. They always bore 

 a legend, either symbolic or ex])lained by letters. 



WOOD, BARK, LEAVES. 



Wood as a material used to engraVe and write upon is perhaps more 

 ancient than stone, l)iit tliei-e is no trace of it left from the juvhis- 

 toric })eriod. It was s])lit into thin boards, u])on which were traced 

 in different colored inks the characters of the language. Tlie Egyp- 

 tians must have proceeded in this manner, if one may judge by a syca- 

 more l:)oard discovered in 1S37 in the third pyramid of Memphis, 

 which, according to the Egyptologists, dates back more than five 

 thousand j^ears. 



The ancient hnvs of Solon and of Draco were likewise traced upon 

 wooden tables. They were called " axones."' These tables joined iu 

 the sha])e of quadrangular prisms and ci-ossed by an axis, were first 

 set up perpendicularly in the citadel, where, i-evoh'ing by the slight- 



opolyl.ius, III, •S.'i. 



'' AUiiier (A.) et Hissard (P.). Musee de Ii.\(»ii. Iiisci'ii)tions ;iiiti(|in's. I.you, 

 1888 seq. gr. 8°, t. 1, p. 58 seq. and 1 plate. 

 c Suetonius. Twelve Ciesars. Nero, C. 20. 



