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Description: | A Roman gold amulet or talisman, comprising a rectangular plaque (lamella) of thin gold sheet, lightly incised with a text in a mixture of Greek and Latin characters and magical symbols. There appear to be nine lines of text across the short axis of the plaque and two additional marginal lines on the right side of the long axis. Creasing of the soft metal of the plaque (there are seven 'fold' lines) shows that it was originally rolled into a tube, with the text on the inner face. It was unrolled by the finder. Such amulets, inscribed with secret formulae, were worn as a protection against evil. Their texts resemble those of Roman magical papyri and, as on those, the precise form and arrangement of the words and characters was critical in investing the object with its protective magical powers.Very few inscribed gold amulets are known from Britain. They include examples from Caernarvon, York and Wood Eaton, Oxfordshire (RIB I, 436 and 706. II, 2430.2). Henig regards the gold lamellae, together with other magical amulets, as possible evidence for the presence in Roman Britain of a small Eastern immigrant community (M. Henig Religion in Roman Britain London, 1984, 184 ff.).Surface metal analysis conducted at the British Museum indicated that the gold content is approximately 91%.
Original Image | Publisher: | http://finds.org.uk | Source: | Portable Antiquities | Identifier: | http://finds.org.uk/database/artefacts/r... | Go to resource |
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