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A Curse Tablet Found Under a Dutch Town Square Carries a Greek Spell in Egyptian Style
A small lead tablet found beneath Heerlen’s town hall square was meant to do harm. Nearly 1,800 years later, its scratched Greek words are revealing how Egyptian-style magic reached Rome’s northern frontier. Researchers at Heidelberg University have deciphered the inscription on the Roman-period curse tablet, discovered in the Dutch municipality of Heerlen. In antiquity, the…
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Only Known Roman Bone Phallus Discovered in Museum Storage in the Netherlands
A routine inventory inside a Dutch museum storage facility has revealed something archaeologists almost never see: a Roman phallus carved from bone, an object so unusual that it may be the only confirmed example of its kind from the ancient world. The artifact surfaced during a large-scale cataloging project at the Valkhof Museum in the…