A curse tablet is a flat slab of stone, clay, wood, or lead inscribed with a binding spell and beseeching a supernatural being to perform an action against someone. By burying the tablet in or near a fresh tomb, a place of execution or battlefield where spirits of the dead still hovered that person was delivered to the powers of the underworld (1) Sometimes, they were deposited in sanctuaries of underworld god or in springs which could carry the tablet down to the underworld (2). The dead beseeched or commanded to carry out binding curses were usually considered restless spirits; those who had died before their time, those who had been violently murdered, whose who committed suicide and those killed in battle (3). Removing a curse tablet from the place in which it had been deposited deactivated it (2).
Hundreds of curse tablets have been excavated across Greece, the practice of employing curse tablets spread across the Roman Empire into Britan they detailed grievances including calls for justice against thieves, unfaithful spouses or competitors (4).
- Luck, G. 1985. Arcana Mundi: Magic and the Occult in Greek and Roman Worlds.
- Ogden, D. 2008. Night’s Black Agents.
- Ogden, D. 2001. Greek and Roman Necromancy.
- Blanckett-Ord, R. & Fischel, A. 2020. A History of Magic Witchcraft & the Occult.