Curse tablet found in Roman-era grave in France targets enemies by invoking Mars | Hacker News Reader

Curse tablet found in Roman-era grave in France targets enemies by invoking Mars

livescience.com

33 pointsdiodorus14 comments

The full tentative transcription, from the original article in French:

    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)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curse_tablet

I wonder how likely it is that these individuals wrote the curse themselves or if someone provided that as a service.

And if they did, I wonder if it was a one time license or curse as a service with regular updates

Curse as a service is just what we call modern subscription-based computing.

Social media…. with curses directed right at you ;)

Pretty likely! You can often see ones that follow the same format in the same hand, but with different names subbed in. Presumably some people went to a specialist who then followed mostly the same format varying for your own needs (a bit like a lawyer today?). It's unclear what the proportion was, maybe there were lots of people who figured DIY was good enough.

I learned this in a college course, Wiki seems to cite a few sources for this as well, but they're all a bit old. Not sure what the latest research is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curse_tablet#CITEREFGager1992

In contrast https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bath_curse_tablets are more like votive offerings made to the gods, at a hot spring.

I was just writing about these when I saw your comment.

The museum at the Roman Baths has some of these on display. If you visit Bath and are interested in history* then the Baths are well worth a visit. The whole site is rather larger than it appears on the surface.

* Tbh, if you are are not interested in history (or architecture) you are probably not visiting Bath.

I can add it to my book collection next to the necronomicon

i will try to curse me to see if negatives cancel out and i escape eugenics

There’s this weird guy who is powerful and utterly obsessed with the planet Mars.

/tinfoil hat

I was thinking the same thing ... this dead person might be new nom for NASA director?

Check this out

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Mars:_A_Technical_Tale

A novel written by Werner Von Braun. Set on Mars. The ruler of Mars is "The Elon".

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