Fortunata

Fortunata was a young woman enslaved in the late first-century or early second-century, known from a surviving deed of sale from Londinium (London, UK). This deed of sale was featured as one of the objects in the BBC's A History of the World in 100 Objects.

Biography Fortunata was a member of the Diablintes people of northwestern Gaul. Her age is not known, but she was sold as a slave in London between AD 80 and 120 (possibly under the reign of Domitian (AD 81–96)

Deed of sale Enslavement was a legal institution during the Roman Empire . The deed of sale of Fortunata was handwritten into a wax tablet. The text became inscribed into the wooden casing and so its content survived, and the case was discovered during a 1994 excavation at 1 Poultry, London. The text was written in 11 lines into a wooden tablet cut from silver fir.

Reception and public display The Fortunata tablet is in the collection of the Museum of London (inventory number: ONE94<5160>). It featured as one of the objects in the BBC's A History of the World.