Sophie Smith
Appearances
Global News Podcast
Russia's chemical weapons chief killed in Moscow bomb blast
Until now, it's been hidden inside a silver amulet, wrapped in a wafer-thin piece of foil that's too fragile for archaeologists to unravel by hand. The message comes from a time when Christianity was still spreading across Europe and was taken from the grave of a man found buried in what is now the German city of Frankfurt, in the former Roman city of Nida.
Global News Podcast
Russia's chemical weapons chief killed in Moscow bomb blast
Although the amulet itself was found in 2018, researchers have only now been able to decipher the scroll using computer tomography, which is scans similar to x-rays.
Global News Podcast
Russia's chemical weapons chief killed in Moscow bomb blast
Birgit Schwan is one of the conservationists from the Archaeological Museum of Frankfurt and Mainz that deciphered the text.
Global News Podcast
Russia's chemical weapons chief killed in Moscow bomb blast
What does it say? In the name of Jesus Christ, Son of God, it says, may this means of salvation protect the man who surrenders himself to the will of the Lord Jesus Christ. The owner of the scripture is thought to have died between 230 and 270 AD, when Christians were still persecuted. The researchers have said that evidence of Christianity north of the Alps has never existed before this study.
Global News Podcast
Russia's chemical weapons chief killed in Moscow bomb blast
But it's not the first time this year that similar technology has been shown to decipher historical artefacts. In February, researchers used artificial intelligence to digitally unroll charred historical texts in Pompeii, which means that scientific breakthroughs have an important role in helping us understand the past.