Ancient Italians may have learned to write in religious sanctuaries, where tablets and styluses bearing letters were left as offerings, according to an interpretation of early inscriptions. The idea suggests that places of worship may also have helped pass on writing skills long before Roman rule.
Archaeologist Ruth Whitehouse examines the possibility in her book, “Writing Matters: Italy in the First Millennium BCE.” Kathryn Lomas of Durham University assessed the theory in a review published in the Journal of Roman Archaeology.
The alphabet reached parts of the peninsula through Greek and Phoenician contacts centuries earlier. At the sanctuary of the goddess Reitia at Este-Baratella, in northeastern Italy, worshippers offered bronze writing tablets and styluses.
Their inscriptions include dedications, alphabets, and writing exercises. A 2019 study by Katherine McDonald links these offerings, dating from about 350 to 150 B.C., to basic literacy instruction.
How ancient Italians learned to write in religious sanctuaries
Whitehouse links the sanctuary finds to early examples from Etruria, where objects bear complete or partial alphabets. Some appear connected to writing tools, but Lomas notes that interpreting every letter-marked pot as an inkwell is uncertain. The surviving inscriptions do not show where their writers were trained.
Instead of focusing only on what ancient words meant, Whitehouse looks at the objects carrying them. She considers how letters were cut into pottery, metal, and stone, and how their placement affected what people could see. This approach treats writing as a social practice as well as a way to record language.
The offerings also raise questions about women’s access to literacy. At Este, most inscribed bronze styluses appear to have been dedicated by women.
Whitehouse also examines inscribed loom weights and ivory tokens bearing female names, challenging assumptions about women’s roles in ancient communities. Still, the dedications cannot establish who personally wrote each inscription.
What the finds tell researchers about ancient lessons
Whitehouse suggests the religious setting may have given writing “special or supernatural significance,” as Lomas puts it. But offerings associated with learning do not establish that lessons took place at the sanctuary.
Lomas points to other possibilities, including teaching within families or learning to write during craft training. She notes that early excavations often failed to record precisely where objects were found. Others are damaged or hard to date, making comparisons between regions difficult.
The evidence is especially uneven because Etruria is better represented than many other parts of ancient Italy, and the Veneto offerings come from a later period. Whitehouse’s argument raises questions about who learned to write and why, but Lomas cautions against treating sanctuary teaching as an established practice across the region.
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