Black magic of the Roman era: Ancient lead tablet found in UK

de bene esse: literally, of well-being, morally acceptable but subject to future validation or exception

An ancient tablet unearthed in Kent is inscribed with curses intended to bring bad luck to more than a dozen people.

The rolled up lead tablet found in East Farleigh, on the site of a Roman farmstead, was found in a 3rd to 4th Century building that may have been a type of temple.
Inscribed on the lead in capital letters are the names of 14 people, which an Oxford University expert says were  likely the intended victims of a curse.

Cursed: The lead scroll discovered in East Farleigh, Kent, which contains the names of 14 individuals to whom its author wished to bring bad luck

 

Discovered by the Maidstone Area Archaeological Group during excavations three years ago the tablet has undergone a series of detailed tests to determine its purpose.

Etremely fragile, the 6cm by 10cm tablet, just 1mm thick, is an example of black magic that was popular in the Greek and Roman eras - often relied on to call on the gods to torment specific victims.

Once inscribed, the tablets were rolled up to conceal their inscriptions then nailed to the wall of a temple or buried in places considered close to the underworld, such as graves, springs or wells.

 

The Kent scroll had likewise been carefully rolled and buried. As it was unrolled, the inscribed letters became visible under a scanning election microscope.

Barely discernable: The letters inscribed on the lead tablet seen under a scanning electron microscope

 

Dr Roger Tomlin, lecturer in Late Roman History at Wolfson College, Oxford, an authority on Roman inscriptions, spent four days examining the scroll. He believes it was made in the 3rd Century AD.  ‘The tablet is not dated,' he said, ‘and since it is written in capital letters it is not possible to date it by handwriting. It’s possible that it was made in the third century AD.'

‘Lists of names are quite often found on lead tablets. Sometimes they accompany a complaint of theft addressed to a god, and name persons suspected of the theft.'
Dr Tomlin told Discovery News he believed that the tablet consists of two columns of names, but that it is not necessarily complete.

Black magic: Dr Roger Tomlin's transcription of the text on the scroll. Some names are written upside down or backwards, thought to be a means of making life particularly perverse of difficult for those individuals

Concealed: The scroll as it appeared when it was found. The extremely fragile 6cm by 10cm tablet is just 1mm thick

Tomlin was able to decipher the Latin names Sacratus, Constitutus, Memorianus and Constan, as well as two Celtic names, Atrectus and Atidenus.  Eight further names are incomplete, but further cleaning and examination could eventually lead to their transcription,  he said.

The scribe wrote some of the names backwards or upside down. Dr Tomlin speculated this was intended to invoke 'sympathetic magic' to 'make life difficult or perverse' for those particular individuals.

 

ROMAN 'BLACK MAGIC' HOT SPOT

A curse tablet or binding spell (defixio in Latin) is a type of curse found throughout the Graeco-Roman world, in which someone would ask the gods to do harm to others.

They have been throughout Europe with more than 200 found in Britain alone - particularly around the South West, which has been one of the major centres for finds of the curses.

The largest collection of such tablets - around 130 - was found in the thermal spring in Bath - known to the Romans as Aquae Sulis - and are on display in the Roman Baths Museum.

The second-largest collection of around 80 is from the Roman temple to Mercury at Uley, with some of those displayed in the British Museum.

The texts were typically scratched on very thin sheets of lead in tiny letters, before being rolled or folded and pierced with nails.

The bound tablets were then usually placed beneath the ground in graves, tombs or underground sanctuaries, or otherwise thrown into wells or pools, or nailed to the walls of temples.

Not all tablets were intended to bring harm to those named. Some were used for love spells, which would be placed in the home of the intended recipient.

But the motive behind the curse, and indeed the nature of the curse itself, both remain a mystery since experts are yet to glean clues from the text.

'No god is named. Indeed, we cannot be sure that we have the beginning of the text,' Dr Tomlin told Discovery.

Part of the tablet's significance also lies in the fact the Romans were the first literate inhabitants of Britain, making it and other similar items among the earliest written records of British life.

'If this is a curse tablet, which it seems to be, it is presumably a product of its local community - so it is a reasonable guess that the persons named on it lived there,' Dr Tomlin said.

Dr Tomlin explained the presence of Celtic names on the scroll. 'They are Celtic in etymology (but) they have Latin case-endings,' he said.

'So far as we can judge there was a mix of Roman and Celtic names in the name-stock of Roman Britain. Just as in modern Britain, it would be risky to deduce national differences from names alone.'

The Kent Archaeological Society is paying the Sittingbourne-based Conservation Science Investigations (CSI) to conserve the tablet and continue research.

The group hopes the public will be able to visit CSI's offices to watch some of the work as it is underway. It may be possible to put the scroll on public display at the end of this year.


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