Archaeologists from Le Service Archaeologie Orléans have discovered a series of 'curse-amulets' in burials at a Romano-Gaulish cemetery beneath an eighteenth century hospital in the city of Orléans in north-central France, according to a press release issued on 7 January 2025. The cemetery, which was discovered in 2022, was already considered unusual, in that it comprises a single row of about 60 graves along a wall, and that all of those buried here appear to have been adult males, contrary to typical Roman practice. The burials are thought to date from the first-to-third centuries AD. All of the dead were buried in painted wooden coffins, with no sign of any cremations. Curiously, 21 of the graves also contained 'curse-amulets'.
'Curse-amulets' (properly called 'defixion tablets') are sheets of lead upon which an inscription calling for supernatural intervention has been written. The use of lead was not just practical (although it was practical, since the soft nature of lead made it easy to inscribe and fold or roll up) but also served a symbolic purpose, lead being associated with the underworld and the gods who dwelt there in the Greek and Roman worlds. Thus, the invocations on these amulets were typically calling on these gods to cause harm to someone, with more benign prayers written on different materials. Curse amulets were often hidden somewhere on their intended victims property, or buried deep in the ground where they might better reach the chthonic deities.
To date, one of the curse amulets from Orléans has been partially deciphered. This amulet, from grave F2199, was carefully unrolled and then chemically treated to remove patches of corrosion and protect its surface from further degradation. The inscription thus revealed was to faint to be read by the Human eye, but has been largely revealed using Reflectance Transformation Imaging, a method which involves taking photographs from a large number of different angles, then using software to create a three-dimensional model of the surface. An online tool showing Reflectance Transformation Imaging of the amulet can be found here.
The inscription revealed appears to be in the ancient Gallic language, written in Latin cursive, with some borrowed words from Greek and Latin. This has been interpreted as 'ib r…mi [m]arte rigisamu | a]nmantigIu, Se uiron bnanon uanderonado brixton sod-esti, Cisin…piSSlon atlon atemiston, Etic se-uiron banon canti piSSiantas, Sollebne(m), Marulliam, Sulpici(i), Claudia(m), Marulliam g., Curiatiu(m), Mat|(e)rno(n), Tiberium, Cantognati, Sulpici(i), (B)regesia, Regina Italica pri(uata) Sulpici(i), Regina Regina, Regina dona Tibe(rius), [..]ix, Ateporigis, Lecti, (Se)gouisu(m)'.
Gallic is not a well-understood language, but can be deciphered to some extent by comparison to other ancient Celtic languages, such as Old Irish, Old Breton, and Old Welsh. The inscription has been translated by the linguist Pierre-Yves Lambert as reading 'To Mars the Royal, who pierces names, It is the bewitchment of these men and women below (named) who accomplished the unfortunate and unjust feat, and also all those who were accomplices of these men and women', followed by a list of Latin names, then an invocation to 'Regina' (presumably a reference to a deity), then some more names in Gallic.
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