The only lead curse on a Roman emperor ever found, with a Roman gold coin. The lead foil would be hung in a temple to enact the curse, which would be made with the impression of a coin. Photograph: Martin Godwin
Posted on 12/18/2007 10:37:20 PM PST by SunkenCiv
Some 1,650 years ago someone was so comprehensively fed up with the state of the Roman empire that they committed an act of treason, blasphemy and probably criminal defacing of the coinage. They cursed the emperor Valens by hammering a coin with his image into lead, then folding the lead over his face. The battered scraps of metal discovered by Tom Redmayne, an amateur metal detector, in a muddy field in Lincolnshire are a unique find... Thousands of Roman cursing charms survive, scrawled on pieces of lead with a hole punched to hang them up. Many were found thrown into the hot springs in Bath, demanding revenge on those guilty of petty theft... Sam Moorhead, a coins expert at the British Museum and expert adviser to the Portable Antiquities Scheme, which encourages voluntary reporting of finds, is convinced it is the only explanation. Redmayne's find is unprecedented, but is just one of a torrent of 300,000 valuable, fascinating or downright weird object finds reported by amateurs in the 10 years since PAS was created.
(Excerpt) Read more at arts.guardian.co.uk ...
The only lead curse on a Roman emperor ever found, with a Roman gold coin. The lead foil would be hung in a temple to enact the curse, which would be made with the impression of a coin. Photograph: Martin Godwin
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Nice coin too. Those who watched HBO's Rome recall the curse scene involving cutting a lead sheet while uttering a curse. |
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Raised edges and all. Perfectly round. Looks almost machine made.
But, weren't coins struck, back then, by hammer and anvil?
Sure, they do... /grin
Or was that “lead baron”???
There were mobile mints that did use a stamp, analogous to the one used for wax seals, so that an emperor or general on campaign or the march could coin money when needed to pay the troops or for their food etc. Many of the surviving coins are of that type, and some appear to have been refaced, that is, the previous image, whatever it was, was struck over. Sejanus was on the way to succeeding Tiberius when the emperor turned on him over a little misunderstanding (Sejanus had been involved in a conspiracy to kill Tiberius’ son, and was involved in some other plots; it is laid out beautifully in that “I, Claudius” BBC series of years ago), but had prior to that been able to issue coins. After he was struck down (strangled in his cell, rather than stabbed as shown in the show) his coins were recycled to a great extent, as only about a dozen examples are known.
Oh yeah... and given the age and location of this find, I’m surprised that the coin was gold anyway; coins of the later Roman Empire are generally bronzes, and not in very good condition when found. You’ve probably seen those uncleaned bundles of coins for sale on eBay? Those are usually just a concreted mass of old Roman bronze coins from the late empire, and originate in recent findspots in the Balkans or Turkey. Presumably they were either buried by someone taking refuge from a barbarian attack, or were caches of booty buried by one of the barbarians. Either way, whomever buried it never went back or was unable to find it.
That multi-era pun goggles the mind.
I got a charge out of that too. I’ve met a Briton who has a history of, uh, unconventional professions. He had a very expensive metal detector which can be set for specific depths, specific metals, etc, and was very knowledgeable about how to and where to look for stuff of this kind. He had an interesting grasp of field, uh, archaeology.
That was the best Roman Historical movie ever filmed, IMHO. Sejanus was beautifully played by Patrick Stewart, later Captain Picard on Star Trek TNG.
It did a great job of treading that line between drama (actually melodrama, given some of the dialogue) and the history. One thing about the Roman aristocracy, it was never dull. :’)
“That was the best Roman Historical movie ever filmed, IMHO.”
And Derek Jacobi, John Hurt, Sian Phillips, Brian Blessed...
and surely others I fail to recall after about not seeing it for
about a quarter-century!
“Clau...Clau...Claudius!”
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074006/
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