What would happen, indeed, if the earliest monument of Christianity in a district should have proved not bigger than a thumb and hidden up in some item of jewelry no man could have dared to take to pieces?
In 2018, excavators at the Roman-period settlement of Nida, located on the outskirts of Frankfurt, passed through a cemetery containing burials frequently containing personal objects. It was not until the second glance that one grave was conspicuous. Silver capsules such as those put on a cord were discovered under the chin of a man who was estimated to have died in his late 30s or early 40s. Within it was a strip of silver foil, rolled to a wafer, too thin to be unrolled by the hand after about two thousand years.
The dimensions of the object were small, yet accurate 3.5 centimeters (1.4 inches) in length, constructed with little eyelets to attach it to the body, and containing a piece of foil with 18 lines of text. Archeologically it was a phylactery-an amulet that was to protect the wearer in everyday life. Its locality was, indeed, as much to be considered as its workmanship: the place of the burial was upon the fringe of the ancient city, and the material which accompanied the grave served to fix its date to a period between 230 and 260 AD., when Nida was still a thriving province of the Roman Germania superior. It was first an engineering problem than a historical one when one had to read the inscription.
The initial efforts were based on magnification and x-ray activity, but the pattern of folds and compression of the foil resulted in a maze that was impossible to read. It would be not until 2024 that computer tomography achieved the breakthrough, and provided cross-sectional imagery that was fine enough as to produce a digital representation of the curled metal. Markus Scholz, a professor at Goethe University who worked on the excavation, explained the moment the letters were finally figured out: “I could not believe my own eyes at first.” The method acted as a non-destructive “unrolling” to leave the original object intact but rebuild its surface to analyze it.
As theorists started translating the text, they found a very direct Christian invocation in it. One of them translates: “(in the name) of St. Titus. Holy, holy, holy! By the name of Jesus Christ, son of God!” It moves on to a petition of protection, and ends with a wording that is consistent with the biblical text in Philippians 2:10-11 an early Latin variant that brings devotion to a written form and not an image. It is also written with the acclaim “agios, agios, agios,” used in Greek, but written in Latin, an element that further connects the religion of the household with the wider liturgical culture.
The artifact was rather informative due to a number of features. It is written in Latin, not as characteristic of such amulets as Greek, but addresses Christ without mixing it with pagan or other religious formulae. It is this exclusive concentration which contributes to the popularity of the object as the oldest monument of Christianity north of the Alps. It also sheds light on the way belief moved: not just via sermons or institutions, but also the wearable technology of the time; that is, the small, portable and body-worn devices.
The scholarship has a more silent human fact behind it. However high or low the social status of the man who wore the amulet, the amulet itself would indicate a secret cult of risk and necessity insurance against disease, disaster, or any power that supposedly flows unseen in the daily affairs of man. The capsule was still intact due to its seal, durability and burial into the soil and the message intact since it could be read by modern imaging when the hands were unable to read.
