Following up on my post about a relief showing writers at desks at Ostia, I should also mention a second artifact found in the same region. It is a relief uncovered in the nineteenth century at Portus (just north of Ostia) and now in the Torlonia Collection.

The relief shows two people unloading cargo from a ship, while workers at the dock or warehouse keep records. One worker is seated on a chair at a desk with either tablets or a codex, apparently writing with the right hand.¹

This relief is, to the best of my knowledge, not securely dated. The catalog of the Torlonia collection describes the date in very loose terms: “The present sculpture seems to date back to the 3rd century CE.”²

I don’t know the exact circumstances of its discovery, and I haven’t had the chance to see the relief in person. It would be nice to be able to establish a more precise date for this piece. If it is in fact from the third century, it would constitute quite early visual evidence for the use of desks for writing.

1. This is the description of Russell Meiggs, Roman Ostia, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Clarendon, 1973), plate XXVI: “Relief in Greek marble (m. 0.43 x 0.33), found at Porto, now in the Torlonia Museum. Visconti, Catalogo, n. 338. Wine is being unloaded from a merchantman. The three seated figures may be a tabularius with two adiutores, recording the cargo on wax tablets in the form of a book. The leading porter receives a ? tally as he passes. Perhaps a customs scene.” Meiggs uses the catalog number from Visconti’s catalog of 1880. The relief is number 336 in Pietro Ercole Visconti, Catalogo del Museo Torlonia di scuture antiche (Rome, 1876), p. 170. ↩︎
2. Carlo Lodovico Visconti, I monumenti del Museo Torlonia (Rome: 1885), p. 304: “Sembra doversi riferire la presente scultura al III. secolo dell’era volgare.” ↩︎