Bronze styli were first employed as writing tools by the Mesopotamians, who used them to incise surfaces with their cuneiform writing. This stylus would have been used for writing on wax tablets, tabulae ceratae, the most common writing medium in the Roman world. The tablets could be reused by warming and melting the wax and letting it set again. Their use persisted in Europe until the Late Middle Ages, when they started to be replaced by other writing tools.
To learn more about everyday bronze items in the Classical World, visit our relevant post: Everyday Items in the Classical World.
