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# A lead curse tablet, or defixio, written in Ancient Greek and designed in the Egyptian manner, with a group of magical signs meant to carry its request to the powers of the other world
- URL: https://theparnassian.com/en/svintsovaia-tablichka-s-prokliatiem-ili-defiksion-napisannaia-na-drevnegrecheskom-i-oformlennaia-v-egipetskom-stile-s-gruppoi-magicheskikh-znakov-kotorye-dolzhny-byli-donesti-prosbu-do/
- Published: 2026-06-21T15:45:14.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-01T05:25:47.000Z
- Author: Alexandr Radayev
- Tags: Archaeology, Faith, Museums

A lead curse tablet, or defixio, written in Ancient Greek and designed in the Egyptian manner, with a group of magical signs meant to carry its request to the powers of the other world. The tablet names two men and two women, who may equally be the cursed or the cursers; or else the tablet curses a group of three persons, at the instance of a fourth, a woman.

The curse is dated to the 2nd century. The defixio was found at the bottom of a well beneath the town hall square in the Dutch town of Heerlen, where the Roman military settlement of Coriovallum once stood.

One would think it logical for a curse in the Roman north to be written in Latin rather than Ancient Greek, let alone with Egyptian demonic attributes. But the little sorceress who scratched it out had probably come to a garrison on the empire's northern fringe, in the German backwoods, from Roman Egypt, and brought with her a local brand of evil spirits.