Archaeologists discovered a silver amulet containing an 18-line text showing the oldest known devotion to Christianity north of the Alps.
Computer technology helped unravel the mystery of the text hidden within a silver amulet from the third century A.D.
The find rewrites the history of Christianity’s spread in the northern Roman Empire.
An 1,800-year-old silver amulet discovered buried in a Frankfurt, Germany, grave, still next to the chin of the man who wore it, has 18 lines of text written in Latin on just 1.37 inches of silver foil. That could be enough to rewrite the known history of Christianity in the Roman Empire.
The amulet—and the inscription—are the oldest evidence of Christianity found north of the Alps.
Every other link to reliable evidence of Christian life in the northern Alpine area of the Roman Empire is at least 50 years younger, all coming from the fourth century A.D. But the amulet, found in a grave dating between 230 and 270 A.D. and now known as “The Frankfurt Inscription,” was made to better decipher the inscription.
“This extraordinary find affects many areas of research and will keep science busy for a long time,” Ina Hartwig, Frankfurt’s head of culture and science, said in a translated statement. “This applies to archaeology as well as to religious studies, philology, and anthropology. Such a significant find here in Frankfurt is truly something extraordinary.”
The amulet was found in what was once the Roman city of Nida at an archaeological site outside of Frankfurt in 2018. During excavation of the area, crews uncovered an entire Roman cemetery wherein the plot designated as “grave 134,” a small silver amulet, known as a phylactery, was located right under the chin of the occupant’s skeleton. He likely wore it around his neck and was buried with it.
Following the find, the Archaeological Museum Frankfurt restored the silver amulet, which included a thin silver foil with an inscription, as seen by microscopic examinations and X-rays in 2019. The wafer-thin silver foil was too brittle to roll out.
In May 2024, a breakthrough came when using a state-of-the-art computer tomograph at the Leibniz Center for Archaeology in Mainz. “The challenge in the analysis was that the silver sheet was rolled, but of course after around 1,800 years it was also crumpled and pressed,” Ivan Calandra, laboratory manager for imaging procedures at the center, said in a statement. “Using the CT, we were able to scan it in a very high resolution and create a 3D model.” The virtual object was then scanned piece by piece, slowly revealing the words, allowing experts to finally get a look at the inscribed text on the individual fragments from the scan.
But then came the puzzle work. Markus Scholz from Frankfurt’s Goethe University was able to piece together the 18 lines. “Sometimes it took weeks, even months, until I had the next idea,” he said in a statement. “I called in experts from the history of theology, among others, and we approached the text together bit by bit and ultimately deciphered it.” Some edges were lost due to damage and some words remain open to discussion. The original inscription is entirely in Latin, unusual for a time that featured amulets written in Greek or Hebrew.
The Frankfurt Silver Inscription, based on the most updated translation:
(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 [strength?]
all attacks(?)/setbacks(?).
The god(?) grants well-being
Admission.
This rescue device(?) protects
the person who is
surrenders to the will
of the Lord Jesus Christ, God’s Son,
since before Jesus Christ
all knees bow: the heavenly ones,
the earthly and
the underground, and every tongue
confess (to Jesus Christ).
Without a reference to any other faith besides Christianity, rare for amulets of this age, the purely Christian inscription not only shows the rise of Christianity to the north, but also the amulet owner’s devotion. During the third century A.D., association with Christianity was still dangerous, and identifying as Christian came with great personal risk, especially as Roman emperor Nero punished Christians with death or even a date in the Colosseum. That was no matter for this man in Frankfurt who took his allegiance to Jesus Christ to his grave.
The scientific study is bolstered by references never found so early, such as mention of Saint Titus, a student of the Apostle Paul, the invocation “holy, holy, holy!” which wasn’t more common until the fourth century A.D., and the phrase “bend your knees,” which is a quote from Paul’s letter to the Philippians.
“The ‘Frankfurt Inscription’ is a scientific sensation,” said Mike Josef, Frankfurt’s mayor, in a statement. “As a result, 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.”