MYSTERIOUS “curse tablets” have been found among a haul of objects discovered in an unearthed Roman villa.
Other ancient artefacts like belt buckles, axes, and rings and have also been found at the “remarkable” discovery in Grove, Oxfordshire.
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Archaeologists believe on the site sat a “richly decorated” Roman villa in use from the first or second centuries to the the fourth or fifth – likely when the Romans abandoned the island.
The excavators also found coins, rings, brooches, red clay tableware, an oven for drying cereal grains and a horse-headed belt buckle.
The belt buckle, which dates from the years 350 to 450, was likely worn by elites who were in the military or wanted to be associated with it, a statement shared with LiveScience said.
They also found several palm sized axes and an “enigmatic selection of tightly coiled lead scrolls” that look similar to Roman “curse tablets”.
Curse tablets were used between 800BC and 600AD in ancient Greek and Roman cultures in rituals.
Romans writing a tablet would have stated an injustice and asked for wrongs to be put right and asked for revenge from the gods.
The Grove site is known as Brookside Meadows and the excavation work is being conducted by the Red River Archaeology Group (RRAG).
They’ve dug up aisled buildings embellished with painted plaster, mosaics, ornate tile work, colonnades, brick floors and other ornaments.
The complex came to include several buildings with four enormous column bases that are the biggest Roman-era bases in Britain.
Next to these buildings, archaeologists found a “winged-corridor” villa with multiple rooms connected by a central corridor.
Louis Stafford, a senior project manager at RRAG, said: “The sheer size of the buildings that still survive and the richness of goods recovered suggest this was a dominant feature in the locality, if not the wider landscape.”
Francesca Giarelli, a project officer at RRAG, said: “The site is far more complex than a regular rural site and clearly was an important center of activities for a long time, from the Bronze Age to the later Roman period.”
Archaeologists believe the site was first used in the Bronze Age.
Archaeologists unearth ancient ‘flatpack’ bed used by Romans in Britain
A ROMAN flat-pack bed has been unearthed 20 feet below the streets of London.
The funerary bed — the first found in Britain — would have carried an important person to their burial site.
Made out of high-quality oak, it has carved feet and joints fixed with wooden pegs.
It was dismantled and put in the grave of a man in his late 20s to early 30s — then eventually preserved by mud from the underground River Fleet.
Michael Marshall, of Museum of London Archaeology, said: “It’s been quite carefully taken apart and stashed, almost like flat-pack furniture for the next life.”
Five oak coffins dating back to AD 43 to 410 were with it.
The area near Holborn Viaduct, in central London, is being excavated for an office complex’s construction.
Skeletal remains, beads and jewellery have also been found.
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