Bath curse tablets

The tablets were requests for intervention of the goddess Sulis Minerva in the return of stolen goods and to curse the perpetrators of the thefts.

Inscribed mostly in British Latin, they have been used to attest to the everyday spoken vernacular of the Romano-British population of the second to fourth centuries AD.

[2] This excavation was made possible by the removal of the concrete floor and walls, revealing a huge array of Roman era items including the tablets.

[6] Some of the tablets were cast under pressure into thin, flexible sheets with a finish as smooth as paper whereas others appear to have been roughly hammered out from a molten lump.

[7] Some of the tablets had markings that appear to be an illiterate imitation of lettering, for example repetitive lines of crosses or sevens, and some were completely blank.

[14] The formulation of the tablets was part of a ritual known as a "prayer for justice" to the goddess and combined elements of magic and religion.

In order for the curse to operate, the victim would have to first gift the item to the deity so that, in effect, it was a theft from Sulis herself.

It is believed that some tablets were created by “amateurs” or illiterate people who nevertheless trusted that the deity would decipher their curse marks.

[22] The complained of thefts are generally of personal possessions from the baths such as jewellery, gemstones, money, household goods and especially clothing.

[16] Theft from public baths appears to have been a common problem as it was a well-known Roman literary stereotype and severe laws existed to punish the perpetrators.