EXCAVATIONS IN 1999 ON LAND ADJACENT TO WAYSIDE FARM, DEVIZES 



171 



CATALOGUE OF SHALE 

 OBJECTS 



Object 28. Area 2, midden 4255, SF323. Small fragment 

 of a shale armlet of plain oval section with a residual ridge 

 around the inner face. This was an above average size 

 armlet with an original internal diameter of 60-80mm 

 (Lawson 1976, 248). Roman. Section 6 x 3mm, length 

 of fragment 12mm. 



THE INSCRIBED LEAD 



FRAGMENT 



by R. S. O. Tomlin 



An irregular fragment of crumpled lead sheet (Plate 

 6), 78 by 60 mm, c. 1 mm thick, was recovered 

 from midden context 4055. Its surface is thickly 

 patinated with corrosion products, presumably lead 

 oxide and lead carbonate. The edges are all broken 

 except for the top left-hand corner, the top right- 

 hand corner, and part of the right-hand edge, which 

 are original. To judge by this top right-hand corner, 

 the fragment is part of an irregular rectangle with 

 rounded corners trimmed from a piece of 

 hammered lead sheet. There is a possible nail hole 

 in the bottom edge, but unlike most 'curse tablets' 

 it has not been deliberately rolled or folded. 

 Otherwise it resembles a 'curse tablet', since both 

 faces are inscribed with Roman cursive letters, the 

 whole of one with 12-13 lines of closely-packed 

 writing, and the top of the other with 2-3 lines 

 (actually two lines of cursive, with 2-3 more letters 

 resembling IVM, inscribed with a finer point below 

 the end of the second line.) 



The text is difficult to transcribe. The letters 

 are somewhat crude and angular, they tend to 

 overlap other letters above and below, they are 

 shallowly incised and often damaged by corrosion. 

 In consequence there is no run of more than 3-4 

 intact letters at a time, and there are no obvious 

 'curse tablet' formulas as an aid to restoration. The 

 letters are often ambiguous or illegible, but there is 

 enough variety in their forms to exclude the 

 possibility that this is a pseudo-inscription, nor does 

 it seem to be an encrypted text with letters in 

 mirror-image, for example, or in reverse sequence. 

 Whatever its content, it gives the strong impression 

 of being a 4th-century text: there are examples of 

 what seem to be the 4th-century forms of A, E, M, 

 N, R and S; and the forms of letters which seem to 

 be L, Q and V are all consistent with this dating. 



There is also a well-preserved sequence in line 4 of 

 TER, in which the letter-forms and the ligature of 

 T and E are typically 4th-century. There is also a 

 corresponding absence of the earlier forms of all 

 these letters. Two letters helpful for dating have not 

 yet been identified, B and P, both of which change 

 markedly between the 3rd and 4th centuries. 



Single letters and pairs of letters can often be 

 read, but not yet whole words which would 

 guarantee the reading. There is the sequence TER 

 already mentioned; the previous letter, if any, has 

 been lost in damage; the letters are followed by what 

 seems to be another R. At the beginning of line 6 

 there is a sequence which can be read as QVI[.]OC, 

 presumably qui [h]oc. It would suggest the formula 

 qui hoc involavit ('the person who stole this'), but 

 this cannot be read. 



Further study is thus required. For the moment 

 it can only be said that the tablet seems to be a 

 fluent but poorly-written Latin text of 4th-century 

 date, a 'curse tablet' presumably. In Britain these 

 messages to the gods are mostly found at temple- 

 sites in Gloucestershire, Wiltshire and Somerset. 

 For a large and representative sample see those from 

 Bath, published in B. Cunliffe (1988). Work to 

 decipher the text is still ongoing and a separate note 

 will be published in due course. 



THE IRON AGE AND 

 ROMANO-BRITISH IRON 

 OBJECTS 



by J. M. Mills 



INTRODUCTION 



The excavations yielded 279 objects of which four 

 are of Iron Age date or type: a knife and a large nail 

 from infilled Iron Age pits on Area 1 and two mid- 

 late Iron Age pins with scrolled heads from the Area 

 2 midden. In general iron objects are not easily 

 dated and consequently the late date for the midden 

 deposits shown by coin and pottery dates cannot 

 be corroborated. Equally other objects from the 

 midden may be residual but none are 

 characteristically Iron Age in form. The extensive 

 midden deposits of Area 2 produced a total of 130 

 ferrous items of Romano-British date. Of these 92 

 are nails and 38 are objects, including nine tools. 

 The other deposits encountered on Area 2 produced 

 24 iron objects including 18 nails and a single 

 identifiable object (Fig. 16.1), a hasp. A small group 



