In the house of Lucio Cecilio Giocondo, several wax tablets provide an exceptional record on the sale of real estate and securities, animals and slaves. Other activities such as rent, loans and tax collection are also documented.

During the 1875 excavations in the home of the "banker" Lucio Cecilio Giocondo, the discovery of a series of wax tablets provided extraordinary documentation on the use of credit for some types of economic transactions and activities.

Wax tablets were a common writing tool in the ancient world: the text was engraved on a rectangular tablet coated with wax with a pointed instrument (the stilus). Depending on the length of the document, several tablets could be tied up and used together. The devastating effects of the Vesuvius eruption charred the tablets, allowing them to be read, albeit with considerable difficulties of decipherment.

153 documents were recovered showing receipts (apochae) issued to Giocondo in front of witnesses for the sums paid by him to buyers in auctions or private citizens for small transactions. The receipts show the name of the seller and in one case the buyer, sometimes the object of the sale, the names of witnesses and the amount paid by the "banker". These are mostly modest sums, sometimes a few hundred sesterces (the highest of all is 38,000 sesterces), confirming that the citizens benefitting from this service belonged to the middle class, medium-sized merchants or landowners.