Object of the month for October 2009

The Walbrook curse

Found in Princes Street, near the Bank of England in 1928

1st-2nd century AD

As the nights draw in and Halloween draws nearer, the Museum this month turns to
the dark arts for inspiration for its object of the month, as one of our Visitor Hosts,
Kimberley Ahmet, sheds some light on a superstitious object from our Roman
gallery…

“In the Museum of London, you will hear the soothing sound of pipe music playing
softly near the end of the Roman Gallery. This lulling sound is broken by four strident
voices that cry out, causing some of our younger visitors to jump with fright. What are
these voices and what are they saying?

Well, in our ‘Spirituality or Superstition case’ you will find objects like clay figures,
amulets, vases and religious ornaments. Amongst them you will also be able to find
three irregular pieces of cut grey lead. If you look really closely, you will see that each
piece has been inscribed with Latin words.

The words you can see are curses, written by angry or vengeful Roman Londoners
who wanted retribution.

This month’s object we are highlighting from our collection is a Roman curse
inscribed on a piece of lead that was found with a small rectangular hole pierced in
the middle.

That hole was created by a nail which would have fixed the curse to a wooden post
at one of the Roman shrines which once stood on the banks of the Walbrook stream
that flowed south through the City of London down to near Cannon Street Station and
is now buried underneath roads, buildings and tube train tunnels.

The lead has been inscribed on both sides with the same Latin inscription. In English
it reads: “Titus Egnatius Tyrannus and Publius Cicereius Felix is Cursed.”

In the same case you will find another example of a curse, this one only has the
name “Martia Martina” inscribed in reverse. We can’t be sure why the name was
written backwards. One theory is that by writing the name back to front it made the
curse more potent.

Unlike the Walbrook curse which was nailed onto a post, we think that this curse was
folded or rolled up before being cast into a well. Others have been found in the River
Thames. Religious belief regarded such water as rivers, streams and even wells as
the express way of sending messages to the gods – a bit like recorded delivery
today!

Lots of our younger visitors ask us who the people on the inscriptions were but more
importantly, what it was they had done to get cursed in the first place. We will never
know for certain. The majority of curses generally just feature one or more names,
but very rarely do we find more detail.

Curses were a way of sending a petition to the gods, asking for help. It was also a
way of letting everyone else know that this person was not to be trusted. Imagine if
you were walking past a post and saw a piece of lead cursing someone you know, do
you think it would make you think twice about the trust you place in them? And what
about if it was you being cursed – how would you feel?!

There are many different reasons that a Roman Londoner could warrant a curse.
They could be thought to have stolen something valuable, an item of clothing, or
perhaps maybe they simply knew too much.

One of the scariest curses that I have ever heard translates as: “I curse Tretia Maria
and her life, mind and memory, and liver, and lungs, all mixed up together, and her
words, thoughts and memories. Thus may she be unable to speak what things are
concealed…..’”

Find out more about our curses on the Museum’s new ‘Living in Roman
London’ website:

http://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/English/Collections/OnlineResources/Londinium/
analysis/religiouslife/rites/19+belief.htm