The amulet at the discovery site. Credit: Stadt Frankfurt am Main
Researchers in Germany have translated what they believe is the oldest evidence of the spread of Christianity into Europe. In 2018, archaeologists discovered what they’re calling the “Frankfurt silver inscription,” a rolled foil engraving inside a protective amulet, in the grave of a man in an area northwest of Frankfurt, Germany.
“Researchers have used CT scans to ‘digitally unroll’ the ‘wafer thin’ foil and read the inscription within for the first time since the 3rd century AD,” reports the Daily Mail. “Incredibly, the text represents the oldest known evidence of Christianity north of the Alps, dating back to between 230 and 270 AD, scientists say.”
While similar amulets from the 3rd through 5th centuries included mixtures of Jewish, Christian, and pagan texts (presumably because the wearer wanted to avoid missing out on the afterlife in any religion they knew of), the scientists behind this discovery refer to the inscription as “purely Christian.” The text is in Latin, which also surprised researchers, and refers to Jesus as well as St. Titus, an early church leader.
The trick to discovering what was on the inscription and translating it was that the delicate foil roll had been buried for 18 centuries. The staff at the Leibniz Center for Archaeology (LEIZA) in Mainz, Germany, and Frankfurt’s Goethe University spent the last six years working on it.
Oldest #Christian inscription north of the Alps discovered: A 3rd-century #Roman silver amulet found in ancient Nida (#Frankfurt) reveals the earliest purely Christian text in the region.https://t.co/tu7X7jMcR2 #LEIZArchaeology #Archaeology pic.twitter.com/yqQKZTaSdZ
— Leibniz-Zentrum für Archäologie (LEIZA) (@leizarchaeology) December 12, 2024
“The discovery of a Roman silver amulet is changing our knowledge of the early spread of Christianity: the 3.5 centimeter amulet from the 3rd century AD, discovered in the Roman city of Nida near Frankfurt, contains one of the oldest purely Christian inscriptions north of the Alps,” announced LEIZA in a press release (translated from German).
“The challenge in the analysis was that the silver sheet was rolled, but after around 1,800 years, it was of course also creased and pressed,” Ivan Calandra, an archaeologist at LEIZA, said. “Using CT, we were able to scan it at a very high resolution and create a 3D model.”
CT and X-ray technologies allowed scientists to scan the inscription and piece it together. Even though there were some gaps in the texts, scholars were able to translate them.
“I called in experts from the history of theology, among others, and we approached the text together, piece by piece, and finally deciphered it,” Prof. Markus Scholz of Goethe University said.
The amulet strongly suggests that the wearer was a devout Christian because it doesn’t include any references to Jewish theology or pagan practices. It’s also noteworthy that the inscription is in Latin because most similar inscriptions from this era were in Greek or Hebrew.
The inscription also contains a direct reference to Philippians 2:9-11, which reads, “Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”
Here’s the translation of the inscription:
(In the name?) of Saint Titus.
Holy, holy, holy!
In the name of Jesus Christ, Son of God!
The Lord of the world
resists with [strengths?]
all attacks(?)/setbacks(?).
The God(?) grants
entry to well-being.
May this means of salvation(?) protect
the man who
surrenders himself to the will
of the Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God,
since before Jesus Christ
every knee bows: those in heaven, those on earth
and those
under the earth, and every tongue
confesses (Jesus Christ).
“The find offers unique insights into the early spread of Christianity and underlines the cultural importance of Nida as a central Roman settlement in Germania in late antiquity,” LEIZA said in the press release.