This fragment of wood was once a page in a book-like structure, known as a codex. The two holes would have held a piece of string through them, assembling these boards into one object. On its surface are multiplication tables written on gesso. This piece would have likely been used in an educational context, in which a student was practicing mathematics.

Due to the lack of printing technologies in Late Antiquity, the production of fine codices, manuscripts, and written information was limited to the upper class. Many codices remaining from this time period are comparable in price to a house or estate, while this discarded page of homework is more in line with a contemporary composition notebook.

—Ethan Bisselberg

Catalogue Record, OPenn