Escribiendo sobre piedra: breve arqueología de las pizarras escolares: Writing on stone: a brief archaeology of school slates

Abstract

Fragments of school slates and slate pencils are recurrent finds in 19th century archaeological contexts in our country. 19th century archaeological contexts in our country. They are simple objects of uniform characteristics, so the information that can be extracted from them is limited. The texts that analyzed their discovery are usually limited to indicating their function and age, and mentioning that their presence is related to that of schoolchildren, without going into further detail. However, the discovery of slate fragments during the excavations carried out in Domingo Faustino Sarmiento's birthplace in San Juan, which was also the site of one of the city's first public schools, presented an excellent opportunity to delve deeper into the history of these objects. The aim of the present work is to review their origin and their role as a nineteenth-century educational device.