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Archaeologists in France have name dozens ofRoman - era graves of men who were buried with " curse tablet , " at least one of which was write in an extinct speech .
excavation underneath an18th - century hospitalin the town of Orléans , about 75 miles ( 120 kilometers ) southwest of Paris , have revealed more than 60 burials arranged in a single row along a wall . The cemetery , which go out from the end of the first C to the showtime of the third century , was atypical for this time because the burial were apprehend in a row , there were no woman or children , there were traces of paint wooden coffins , and there were no cremation . This could mean that the dead were from a particular mathematical group , such as fellow member of the same profession , according to the Orléans Archaeology Service , which turn up the site .
A skeleton found during excavations beneath a historic hospital in Orléans, France, has a curse tablet between its legs.
Even more strange was the uncovering of 21 expletive tablets , which are little , wheel - up lead plate with inscriptions on them .
Also known by the Romance full term " defixiones , " curse tablets have been notice throughout the ancient Mediterranean world . These thin sheets of lead story were used to talk to the gods . Someone would indite down a curse or like , pierce the tablet with a nail , and point it in the solid ground via a grave or well .
So far , expert have been able-bodied to canvas one of the pill in item , and they describe that it contained an inscription in Gaulish , an extinctCelticlanguage .
A lead curse tablet found in a Roman-era cemetery in Orléans, France, before unrolling.
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The gentleman ingrave F2199was bury with a curse pad between his legs , next to a crushed vase and several coins . After the tablet was recover from the grave , an expert in restitution techniques chemically treated the thin lead plate to protect it from erosion . Then , photographs were taken using reflection factor translation imaging , which produced aclear icon of the unrolled lozenge . Additional expert then define to work deciphering the Romance cursive inscription and transform the Gaulish words .
Pierre - Yves Lambert , a Celtic linguistics expert with the French National Center for Scientific Research , has proposedthat the F2199 curse lozenge is dedicate to " Mars Rigisamu , " which is Gaulish for " Mars the Royal , " or the Roman graven image of war . The inscription diagnose several people — in both Latin and Gaulish — to be place by the curse for their unjust action .
A curse tablet that has been unrolled, with an overlaid transcription of the handwritten text.
While Gaulish continued to be used for several one C after the Roman conquest of the expanse , it was rarely written down — so the swearword pad of paper are already yielding important new examples of this vanish speech .
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A 2nd condemnation pad of paper has been subject toX - ray tomographyin an endeavour to view the interior without unroll it . The fold inside has been scan , but the tab has not been virtually unrolled yet .
Archaeological excavation at the site will be wrapped up at the end of this month , and researchers will undertake further laboratory analysis of all textile uncovered during the excavation .
