In the cities of ancient Greece and Rome and outside the official laws of the state, there existed a dark world of secrets and superstitions. Thus, when someone felt that justice was not on their side or had a pending dispute, they would wait until the dark night to hide small sheets of metal in cemeteries or sacred wells, imploring the help of the gods of the underworld to resolve their earthly disputes. It is precisely in this framework of dark beliefs that the latest discovery deciphered by a research team from the University of Heidelberg is found: a lead tablet written in Greek that treasures the hatred and fear of someone specific.
The discovery. The tablet in question is made of lead, has writings in ancient Greek and was found in Heerlen (Netherlands), in what was formerly an ancient Roman military settlement in the province of Germania Inferior called Coriovallum. The device was in a pit under the town hall square. When the Institute of Papyrology at the University of Heidelberg analyzed its inscription, it found something exceptional: the tablet dated to the 2nd century AD does not have Latin texts, as would be expected given the time and location, but rather an ancient Greek text in the Egyptian style.
The lead tablet measures 9.3 by 4.8 centimeters and contains a group of three magical symbols, known as “characters.” According to Dr. Rodney Ast, director of the Institute of Papyrology, they were used to transmit the message to supernatural powers. Then, the names of four people appear: two men with Latin names and two women with Greek names, who have been identified as slaves. According to Ast, the tablet served either as a curse against those four slaves or as a curse issued in the name of the quartet against an unidentified person.
Why is it important. The most striking thing about the device is that most of the curse tablets found in northern Europe are written in Latin, so this is rare. As Professor Dr. Joachim Quack, director of the Institute of Egyptology at the University of Heidelberg, explains, “in the first centuries of our era, Near Eastern, Egyptian, Jewish and even, at times, Christian traditions merged and spread increasingly throughout the Roman Empire of the time”, which was in Greek further broadens the spectrum in a kind of ancient cultural globalization.
Context. Curse tablets were known as defixiones in Latin or katadesmoi in Greek and were made of lead for a reason: it is a heavy metal, cool to the touch and easy to work with. Once completed, they were buried to “bind” or influence the person targeted by the spell. These types of artifacts existed for about a thousand years, from 500 BC to 500 AD, and have been found in Athens, Rome, Syria, and even England.
In detail. The inscription also suggests that the author of the tablet could have been one of two women with a Greek name, possibly originally from Roman Egypt, who would have brought with her knowledge of this form of communication with divine powers. If true, it is direct evidence of mobility of enslaved people with knowledge of rituals throughout the Empire.
Yes, but. At the moment all we have are the statements of the archeology team that discovered it and their first analyses, but a more exhaustive analysis is still needed. In short, it’s just a start. On the other hand, there are questions that will hardly be answered, such as who exactly cursed whom or if the author is truly of Egyptian origin.
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Cover | Heidelberg and Gemini University
