Identifying styli and writing equipment

Iron pens, wax spatulas, and the tools of everyday literacy.

The stylus wrote on wax tablets: a slender rod (iron or copper alloy) with a point at one end and a flat eraser blade at the other — that eraser is what separates a stylus from a needle or pin. Roman examples abound on settlement sites; medieval ones continue the form.

Related finds include wax spatulas (larger blades for smoothing whole tablets), parchment prickers (bone-handled points for ruling guide holes), lead points (plummets — the pencil's ancestor), seal matrices, and book fittings: clasps, corner pieces, and strap plates from bindings.

A stylus on a rural site is quiet evidence of literacy worth flagging. Record length, both ends' forms, and decoration (some styli carry inlaid bands); for book fittings note engraving and attachment holes — they identify against published binding furniture.

From the guide library inside Collectors Catalogues, a free app for cataloguing antiques and finds with honest, museum-grade records.

More on domestic objects

Identifying mirrors — Polished metal discs.

Identifying oil lamps — Nozzle, filling hole, and mold.

Identifying clay tobacco pipes — Bowl shape and heel marks.

Identifying agricultural tools — Sickles, billhooks, plough irons, and the seasons written in iron.

Identifying fishing gear — Hooks, net weights, and line sinkers from rivers, lakes, and coasts.

Identifying spindle whorls and loom weights — The flywheels and tensioners of home textile production.

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