Bern zinc tablet

As it was only analysed after the death of the workman who had found and removed the tablet from its site, its original archaeological context can no longer be precisely determined.

According to the scant information available to archaeologist Rudolf Fellmann, it was found in Thormenboden forest within what appears to be a Gallo-Roman context, a layer dominated by Roman roof tiles at a depth of roughly 30 centimetres.

[1] It is inscribed with an apparently Gaulish inscription, consisting of four words, each on its own line, the letters formed by little dots impressed onto the metal: The dedication is to Gobannus, a Gallo-Roman god, the name simply meaning "the Smith".

That the tablet does date to Roman Gaul is suggested by the final Ρ of ΝΑΝΤΑΡΩΡ: it was at first written as a Latin R, the additional stroke having been removed again as a scribal error.

[4] It was concluded that the zinc of this tablet was collected from a furnace, where the metal is known to have aggregated, Strabo calling it pseudoarguros "mock silver" (in 1546, Georg Agricola rediscovered that a white metal could be condensed and scraped off the walls of a furnace when zinc ores were smelted), but it is believed that it was usually thrown away as worthless.