In an interesting twist of fate, researchers from the Institute of Papyrology at Heidelberg University discovered “curse tablets” from the Roman era, a fascinating look at the more superstitious side of a triumphant empire.

Found in a pit in the Town Square in Heerlen, the curse tablet measuring about 3.7 by 1.9 inches had been laid to rest at a former Roman military settlement of Coriovallum in Lower Germania.

Whoever left it there had a vendetta against her own, or someone else, as researchers suspect that a slave had written the curse either against the four slaves named, or an unknown person.

Known as a defixione or katadesmoi, these curse tablets made of lead were marked with spells and then buried in places associated with supernatural forces, showing that we, humans, have always had a desire to invoke the gods to act in our favor.

This is a rare sighting from Roman Egypt that revealed the role that magic played in that society, at a time when cultures and belief systems were mixing and spreading throughout the empire.

Someone was mad

Researchers had an arduous task before them, as time damaged the inscription. They employed reflectance transformation imaging, which allowed them to penetrate the tablet deeper than their eyes could, picking up more of the inscription lost, their wish perhaps answered by the gods.

Upon the profane/sacred tablet, they found references to Egyptian divinities, which, according to researchers, surprised them as a rare sighting in Germany. Most in Northern Europe follow a similar format: Latin and Roman. Not Egyptian.

And the plot thickens… as it was buried, interestingly, in a former Roman military settlement, and typically, these were buried in locations infused with the supernatural. Below three magical symbols, the author wrote the names of four enslaved people. The men held Latin names. The women, Greek.

As the inscription had been damaged, researchers couldn’t decipher whether this tablet had cursed four slaves or whether four slaves had cried out to the Egyptian gods and demi-heroes, who knows? To wrath. To wreak havoc on an unknown person.

“The tablet served either as a curse against these four slaves or as a curse in their name against an unnamed person,” as the Heidelberg papyrologist told Phys.

Hoping to “work a little magic”

Already, the curse tablet stands alone among the others that researchers have found, because the author etched the message in Greek rather than Latin. These thin sheets of lead containing scratches of supernatural desires were used to sway a court case, target a rival, or even a lover, as per Archaeology News.

“It cannot be ruled out that one of the two women was the author of the inscription and had brought the supposed ability to communicate with divine powers through such curses with her from Roman Egypt,” says Dr. Julia Lougovaya, research associate at the Institute for Papyrology in Phys.

That might suggest that she wrote it for someone, on behalf of four slaves. This author might have originated from Roman Egypt because of the references used. Along the Nile, magic played a fundamental role in society. But interestingly, more so related to protection and healing, as per Phys.

But this was a curse. And these tablets were Roman. So, did a former slave flip the concept? The significance of the tablet rests on its cultural mix.

In the far north of the Roman Empire, this Egyptian-meets-Greek artifact was found, exhibiting just how far the mélange of cultures traveled. Perhaps, it might even inspire ideas as to who might have wanted to curse someone at some Roman camp, because of the slave names written across the tablet.

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