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The wooden writing tablet is the only deed of a sale of a slave to have been found in Roman Britain.Originally it was coated with black wax in which the scribe wrote with a stilus, but now his writing survives only as scratches in the wood.
The translated text reads: 'Vegetus, assistant slave of Montanus the slave of the August Emperor, has bought the girl Fortunata, by nationality a Diablintian (from near Jublains in France), for 600 denarii. She is warranted healthy and not liable to run away ...'

In the province of Britannia, while the legate ran the army and civil administration, an independent procurator looked after imperial estates and the provincial finances. His office was staffed by imperial slaves and freedmen who handled large sums of money, in the process making fortunes of their own. Vegetus, who was strictly speaking the property of one of these slaves, made enough to buy his own slave. Fortunata ('lucky') cost him 600 silver denarii, two years' salary for a Roman soldier.

The wooden writing tablet is the only deed of a sale of a slave to have been found in Roman Britain.