New curses from Britannia
Over the past 4 (almost 5) years I have created a database of the magical objects from Roman Britain. Actual details of how, what, and why, will be present in the final submission of my thesis at the back end of 2021. Over 2,000 objects are included [Audience: Oooooooo]. As part of the data-gathering process, one of the hardest things to do was to decide when to stop. At some point one had to start sifting through and analysing some of this data and try to draw meaningful conclusions from it all. Methodologically, this makes sense. However, the nature of commercial archaeology and academia in Britain means that stuff keeps turning up and is going to continue to do so. The database I’ve created and stopped adding to at the end of 2019 is already out of date! Obviously I want to present an accurate a picture as I can, but keeping this up to date is one more thing to worry about. Rather than ignore it, for the short term I have chosen to worry about it and add in additional objects absent from THE DATABASE into a separate, but identical database. It probably isn’t sustainable forever, but as objects seems to passively enter my sphere of awareness via twitter, or direct emails, or new articles, I still feel the need to capture that information somehow.
Thus, the latest edition of the journal Britannia, of which I have long been a fan includes some newly published curses in the “Roman Britain in 2019: Inscriptions” section. The author of this section is Roger Tomlin, who has probably done more than anyone for the study of Greek and Latin language in Roman Britain. He is the nexus for all Romano-British inscriptions and undoubtedly has his work cut out keeping up with it all. The downside to this is that there are some large collections of tricky textual objects which have been published sporadically. Thus, in 2020 we are treated to the addition of two more curse tablets from the shrine at Uley. They were excavated in 1977-1979 (see Woodward and Leach 1993). Up until 2016, 41 of approximately 140 curse tablets from the shrine had been published. I think this these are the newest additions to the corpus since then, but that’s TBC.
Whilst we might only have a third of the corpus now available in translation, and all down the good works of Dr. Tomlin, there remains a significant portion of this valuable dataset hidden away by their academic gatekeepers [Audience: Boooo].
Anyhow, let’s forefront some new magical texts from Roman Britain, all published in: Tomlin, R. 2020. “Roman Britain in 2019. I – Inscriptions”, Britannia 51. First View. DOI: https://doi-org.libezproxy.open.ac.uk/10.1017/S0068113X2000049
Curse tablet from Uley(Tomlin 2020, no.12) Irregular rectangle cut from hammered lead sheet, 92 by 79 mm. Both faces inscribed. [Side 1] diu[o] Mercụ rio doṇ aui qui me ma[li] coṇ sili desputauerit ouem inuolauerit ipse deus interscia(t) sangu(i)n[̣ e] uị li si ser(u)us si liber si puer si pueḷ(̣l)a [Side 2] licet qu[o]d ̣ [n]eṣ c̣ io ap̣ut .e[. . .].mụ icạ n diui ipseụ [s . . .] me inp[.]ope..[. . .] nẹ ssi ips.[.]seu[̣ .]s[. . .]. Translation: “To the god Mercury I have given (the man) who of evil intent has ?robbed me (and) has stolen (my) sheep. Let the god himself ?kill (him) with his vile blood, whether (he is) slave or free, whether boy or girl, even if, which I do not know, at the . . . of the god himself . . . me . . . unless . . .”
Curse tabletfrom Uley(Tomlin 2020, no.13)
si quisouem su[um de pro]prio tulerit Virilis, si ser(u)us [si liber] si baro si mulier, si serus [si liber ?ut]nọ n ̣ [i]lis permittas nẹ c̣ [. . . ?nec] bib(e)re (nec m)anducare n[ec ante dies]nouem san(g)uinem suum [. . . ni]si uindictam meam u.[. . .] [. . .] . . . qui . . . [. . .] [. . .]sạ n.ep..[. . .]uit [. . .] sanuine. Translation: “If anyone . . . has stolen his sheep . . . from the property of Virilis, whether slave [or free], whether man or woman, whether slave [or free], may you not permit them [. . .] nor to drink nor to eat [. . .] nor [before] nine [days] . . . his blood unless . . . my vengeance . . . who . . . has . . . with (his) blood”
What is the obsession with the sheep? To avoid any confusion with the English use of ‘sheep’ as singular and plural, in Latin ovem is the plural of ovis so this theft is dealing with a flock rather than a single sheep. One of the earlier published curses, although fragmentary, also mentions sheep (McKie 2016, no. 166), and the rather famous curse from Honoratus notes his loss of two wheels and four cows (McKie 2016, no. 173). Clearly these tablets speak of the grievances of a rural farming community in the area of modern Gloucestershire and something tending towards a tradition of cursing in a move to resolve these issues. There is a general tradition that the curse tablets in Roman Britain were ‘Prayers for Justice’, but this seems to be particularly true of the Uley shrine (well, of those curses we can access). I wonder if it’s because of the association between Mercury and commerce, and therefore wealth? He was the right to dude to be asking about losing money?
I shall certainly look forwards to seeing more.
Bibliography
McKie, S. 2016a. ‘The Social Significance of Curse Tablets in the North-Western Provinces of the Roman Empire’. PhD Thesis, Open University. Tomlin, R. 2020. “Roman Britain in 2019. I – Inscriptions”, Britannia 51. First View. DOI: https://doi-org.libezproxy.open.ac.uk/10.1017/S0068113X2000049 Woodward, A. and Leach, P. 1993. The Uley Shrines: Excavation of a Ritual Complex on West Hill, Uley, Gloucestershire, 1977-9 (English Heritage Archaeological Report 17). London, English Heritage and British Museum.
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