Mysterious silver amulet turns science on its head
A small silver amulet, just 3.5 cm in size, with a thin silver foil with a mysterious incision rolled into it: the „Frankfurt Silver Inscription“. Experts agree that these 18 lines will greatly enrich existing research into the spread of Christianity and the late period of Roman rule on the right bank of the Rhine. The inscription could be deciphered thanks to the latest computer tomography technology. It shows that The wearer of the amulet was clearly a devout Christian, which is absolutely extraordinary for this period.
The first Christian north of the Alps lived in Frankfurt
What makes the find so special is its age. The grave in which the amulet was found is dated to between 230 and 270 AD. There has never been such early, authentic evidence of pure Christianity north of the Alps. All finds are at least around 50 years younger. There are historical references to the first Christian groups in Gaul and perhaps also in the province of Upper Germania in the late 2nd century. However, reliable evidence of Christian life in the northern Alpine regions of the Roman Empire generally only dates back to the 4th century AD.
Frankfurt’s Lord Mayor Mike Josef is delighted: „The ‚Frankfurt Inscription‘ is a scientific sensation. Thanks to it, the history of Christianity in Frankfurt and far beyond will have to be turned back by around 50 to 100 years. The first Christian find north of the Alps comes from our city: we can be proud of this, especially now, so close to Christmas. The people involved have done a great job.“
Frankfurt’s Head of Culture and Science, Dr. Ina Hartwig, is also impressed: „This extraordinary find affects many areas of research and will keep scientists busy for a long time to come. It concerns archaeology as well as religious studies, philology and anthropology. Such an important find here in Frankfurt is really something extraordinary.“
The „Frankfurt Silver Inscription“ translated into German (as at: 04.12.2024)
(In the name?) of St. Titus.
Holy, holy, holy!
In the name of Jesus Christ, Son of God!
The lord of the world
resists to the best of his [ability?]
all seizures(?)/setbacks(?).
The god(?) grants well-being
Admission.
This rescue device(?) protects
the person who
surrenders to the will
of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God,
since before Jesus Christ
bend all knees: the heavenly ones,
the earthly and
the subterranean, and every tongue
confess (to Jesus Christ).
Excavation and site
The amulet capsule was found in 2018 in the north-west just outside Frankfurt in the Frankfurt Roman city of NIDA, the Roman predecessor city of today’s Main metropolis. It is/was one of the largest and most important archaeological sites in Hesse. The silver amulet was found in a 3rd century Roman grave in the „Heilmannstraße“ cemetery in Frankfurt-Praunheim.
Prof. Dr. Marcus Gwechenberger, Head of the Department of Planning and Housing, who is responsible for the Monuments Office, says: „The excavation uncovered not just one grave, but an entire Roman cemetery. These are finds of inestimable value.“ One grave in particular came to the fore: the skeleton of a man was found in number 134, along with grave goods, an incense burner and a jug made of baked clay. But the special extra was under the man’s chin: a small silver amulet, a so-called phylactery, which he probably once wore on a ribbon around his neck. Such a phylactery is a container worn on the body that holds magical contents or (in later times) relics and is intended to protect the wearer. In the 3rd century AD, at a time when Christianity was still subject to reprisals but was a steadily growing cult, it was quite a risk to identify oneself as a Christian. For one man from Frankfurt, however, his faith was apparently so important that he took it with him to his grave. The extent to which he was able to practise and profess his faith or whether the contents of the amulet remained his secret remains to be seen. In any case, the text makes it clear that NIDA was by no means a peripheral border region at this time, but rather shared cultural influences from the entire empire in the vicinity of the provincial capital of Mogontiacum/Mainz, especially as the population came from different parts of the empire anyway.
Conservation, restoration and digital decoiling
The find was conserved and restored at the Archaeological Museum in Frankfurt. It was already clear during the excavation that the silver amulet contained a thin silver foil with an inscription. Microscopic examinations and X-rays in 2019 already showed this, but it would be some time before the text could be deciphered beyond doubt. The wafer-thin silver foil itself is too brittle and fragile to simply roll it up due to the long time it has been in the ground. It would fall apart if you tried to roll it up. The breakthrough finally came in May 2024 when it was examined using a state-of-the-art computer tomograph at the Leibniz Center for Archaeology in Mainz (LEIZA). „The challenge in the analysis was that the silver sheet was rolled, but after around 1800 years, it was of course also creased and pressed. Using CT, we were able to scan it at a very high resolution and create a 3D model,“ reports Dr. Ivan Calandra, Head of the Imaging Laboratory at LEIZA. LEIZA also used a special analysis method for this object and then placed individual segments of the scan together virtually, piece by piece, so that all the words became visible. It was only through this digital unrolling that the entire text could be deciphered.
The reading of the inscription
Archaeologist and expert on Latin inscriptions Prof. Dr. Markus Scholz from Frankfurt’s Goethe University set to work like a puzzle and finally deciphered the 18 lines of the „Frankfurt Silver Inscription“. „Sometimes it took me weeks, even months, to come up with the next idea. I consulted experts from the history of theology, among others, and bit by bit we approached the text together and finally deciphered it“. Individual marginal passages were lost due to the storage on the floor. The addition of the text passages in question remains open to discussion.
What is unusual is that the inscription is entirely in Latin. „That’s unusual for the time. Normally, such inscriptions on amulets were written in Greek or Hebrew,“ explains Scholz. The text is also very sophisticated. The author must have been an elaborate scribe.
It is unusual that there is no reference in the inscription to any other faith besides Christianity. Normally, up until the 5th century, a mixture of different faiths can always be expected in precious metal amulets of this type. Often elements from Judaism or pagan influences can still be found. However, neither Yahweh, the almighty God of Judaism, nor the archangels Raphael, Gabriel, Michael or Suriel are mentioned in this amulet, nor are the forefathers of Israel such as Isaac or Jacob. And no pagan elements such as demons either. The amulet is purely Christian.
Significance for science
The evaluation of the significance of the find by experts for early Christianity and theologians is only just beginning. Some of the formulations contained in the text were not attested until many decades later. For example, at the beginning of the „Frankfurt Silver Inscription“ there is a reference to St. Titus, a disciple and confidant of the Apostle Paul. Just like the invocation „Holy, holy, holy!“, which was not actually known in the Christian liturgy until the 4th century AD. (Trishagion). At the end, the text also contains an almost literal quotation from Paul’s so-called Christ hymn from his letter to the Philippians (here: Phil. 2, 10-11).
The „Frankfurt Silver Inscription“ is therefore one of the most important testimonies to early Christianity in the world. Its discovery opens up new horizons for archaeology, the historical sciences and theology, but also a multitude of new questions.
Together with the evaluation of the entire „Heilmannstraße“ cemetery, these results modify some of the previously accepted ideas in research about the end of the Limes region on the right bank of the Rhine in the 2nd half of the 3rd century AD and illustrate the prominent position of NIDA within Roman Germania. The city of NIDA was an administrative, economic and religious center in the hinterland of the Upper Germanic Limes and, until its abandonment around 270/275 AD, the most important Roman city on the right bank of the Rhine, characterized by an extraordinary cultural and religious diversity.
Frankfurt silver inscription – the movie →
Project participants
The project is an example of the synergies of cooperation between different institutions and project partners.
- City of Frankfurt on the Main
- Archaeological Museum Frankfurt (Department of Culture and Science)
- Denkmalamt Frankfurt (Department of Planning and Housing)
- Leibniz Institute for Archaeology in Mainz (LEIZA)
- Johann Wolfgang Goethe University Frankfurt
- University of Regensburg
- Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn
- Rhine-Main Archaeology Network (VARM)
