Researchers in eastern Serbia have discovered a series of magic spells on tiny rolls of gold and silver, buried alongside the remains of humans who died almost 2,000 years ago.
The incantations seem to invoke divine powers to do good or evil, but the researchers are still trying to translate exactly what was written, and what they were used for.
"The alphabet is Greek, that much we know. The language is Aramaic - it's a Middle Eastern mystery to us," chief researcher Miomir Korac, from the Archaeological Institute in Belgrade said.
The burial site is near the modern-day city of Kostolac, which was the site of the Roman city Viminacium between the 1st and 6th century AD. It's estimated that the latest remains - and the spells - were buried around the 4th century AD.
But while this is the first time archaeologists have discovered something like this in Serbia, they've seen similar tablets of 'binding magic' in other countries.
Binding spells were usually written to benefit or curse the living, but people would bury them with the deceased in the hopes that they would carry them either to angels or demons in the afterlife, and force them to do finish the job.
"They were often love charms, ordering someone to fall in love, but there were also dark, malignant curses, to the tune of: 'May your body turn dead, as cold and heavy as this lead,"
These charms were usually buried with people who had suffered a violent death, because it was believed that "souls of such people took longer to find rest and had a better chance of finding demons and deities and pass the wishes to them so they could do their magic".
What these incantations reveal, are the details about the beliefs and faith of the residents of Viminacium at the time.
"This is a very important archaeological discovery because it shows how much hope they had in the 'curse tablets' so that they used precious metals," Korac said.
"According to my knowledge, such tablets have never been found inscribed in gold anywhere. According to the Roman customs, gold was never put into graves."
There's also evidence that the Roman city was in the middle of a religious shift during the 4th century, seeing as both Christian and pagan gods are called upon.
"Opposing deities appear on these tablets, as if invoking both Christ and the Antichrist today, or Christ and pagan gods, and that is weird. This shows us that the process of converting to Christianity was slow."
The team is still in the middle of excavating the site, so until they've finished digging and the proper analysis of these remains begins, we're not going to know much more about the mysterious find.
But it just goes to show that there's always so much more left to learn about the societies that came before us.
