MAAG Lead Scroll
The Maidstone Area Archaeological Group’s investigation of a number of Roman buildings overlooking the River Medway off Lower Road, East Farleigh has now come to an end. Initially reported in newsletter no. 76 and subsequently in nos. 79, 82, 84, 86, 88, 90 and 93, a final update will be published in the next newsletter.
However, the find of a lead curse scroll from the site during the 2009 season has recently hit the news locally, and nationally, with items on BBC Southeast and BBC Oxford News and articles in the local press and in the Daily Mail Online. This has happened primarily due to a grant from the Kent Archaeological Society to fund the investigation and conservation of the scroll.
The lead scroll, measuring about 6 cm long and 1cm wide, was found in the 3rd/4th century AD building demolition layer, next to the wall at the west side of the NW corner of Building 5. This building ended life as a kitchen or bakery. However, it may have started life in the mid-third century as something grander such as a temple.
The scroll was then handed over to Dana Goodburn-Brown of Conservation Science Investigations (CSI), based in Sittingbourne. An attempt was made to read the fragile scroll without unrolling it by using a technique called neutron computed tomography imaging at the Paul Scherrer Institute in Switzerland. The resolution, however, was not sufficient to discern any writing on it. It was therefore necessary to unroll the scroll and it was then possible to enlarge some of the letters under a scanning electron microscope.
In June 2012, Dr Roger Tomlin, Lecturer in Late Roman History at Wolfson College, Oxford, and an authority on Roman inscriptions, spent four days examining the scroll. He was able to decipher the text and prepare a measured drawing of the inscription.
The scroll is believed to date from the 3rd (or possibly 4th) Century AD and is probably a defixio or ‘curse tablet’.
The text consists of personal names written in capitals in two columns. The scribe has used some encipherment by writing a few of the names backwards or upside down, possibly to invoke ‘sympathetic magic’ to make life especially difficult or perverse for those individuals. There are seven names in each column - Latin names SACRATUS, CONSTITUT[US], C O N S T A N T [ . . . ] a n d MEMORIA[NUS], Celtic names [ATR]ECTUS and ATIDENUS (written ATINED[US]), and eight others which are incomplete.
It is reasonable to assume that the names listed were of people who lived at the site and, since the Romans were the first inhabitants of England who could read and write, they represent the earliest inhabitants of East Farleigh that we may ever be able to put a name to.
From the end of August 2012, Dana Goodburn-Brown will carry out further conservation work on the scroll. It is hoped that this will result in more letters becoming visible. Visitors to CSI should be able to see work in progress during occasional open days between September and December. After further examination by Dr. Tomlin, it may be possible to put the scroll on public display at the end of the year.
The last time a Roman lead scroll was found in Kent was more than 40 years ago, in 1970, at the site of a Roman villa at Eccles (see Arch.Cant. (1985) Volume 102 pages 19-25).