Roman Curse Found In Leicester Dig

Archaeologists from the University of Leicester have just unearthed a Roman tablet with a curse written on it. It dates back 1,700 years.

A tablet is a slab of metal, wood, stone or wax which people used for writing on, by carving the letters into the surface of the tablet.

The curse asks the god Maglus to kill a thief who has stolen a coat belonging to a man called Servandus.

You can read the exact words next to the picture of the tablet below.

'To the god Maglus, I give the wrongdoer who stole the cloak of Servandus... that he destroy him before the ninth day...'

The writer names 18 or 19 suspects, including 'Silvester' and 'Riomandu', but the list is incomplete.

The curse tablet is a sheet of lead and is written on in Latin (the language of the Romans). It's from the second or third century AD.

The discovery was made in Vine Street in Leicester.

All images above © University of Leicester Archaeological Services.

What's so exciting to the archaeologists is that there's a long list of suspects on the tablet - people in Leicester who might have stolen the coat - and until now, they only knew the names of 3 or 4 people who lived in Leicester at the time!

Only photos of the ancient curse tablet will go on show at the Jewry Wall Museum, Leicester - the tablet itself is in safekeeping with experts in Oxford.

Roman writing has been found in Britain before - most famously at Vindolanda, a Roman fort in Northumberland.

At the British Museum, you can see a Roman birthday invitation from Vindolanda. It's written on wood and dates back to AD 97-103.


© Children's Compass

To find out more about life in Roman times, check out Show Me's Romans page.