A scroll discovered in Turkey almost 90 years ago has finally been decoded but experts were surprised to learn that its message contained a curse that links to the Biblical story of Balaam in the Book of Numbers.
An excavation team from the University of Princeton dug the scroll at the Hippodrome in the city of Antioch (Turkey) in the 1930s. The tablet with a thin lead amulet, however, was kept rolled up and locked away without anyone deciphering the letterings.
Two year ago, however, experts from Cologne University unraveled the scroll to study the words with the assumption that that it was of Greek or Latin language. They discovered that the letters inscribed were actually in Hebrew and so referred the scroll to Rivka Elitzur-Leiman from the Tel Aviv University.
Elitzur-Leima was studying Jewish amulets at that time for her doctoral dissertation and decided to look into the scroll using Reflectance Transformation Imaging (RTI). She learned that it was actually written in Aramaic dialect with Hebrew letters and its message contained references to Balaam and the word YHWH, which is Hebrew for God.
"The curse calls upon the angel who stands before Balaam's donkey to block the horses of the opposing team," the expert decoded. Balaam's tale in the Book of Numbers detailed an angel blocking Balaam's donkey from its path. In particular, the scroll's message spoke of drowning the horses of a "blue team" down the mud.
Chariot racing was a popular activity during the fourth and fifth century and Elitzur-Leima said the scroll might have been used to put a curse on someone's competitor in the race. However, it had some parts destroyed by a nail pounded onto the amulet. Elitzur-Leima revealed that this was supposed to make the curse more powerful.
"Chariot races were very much like modern sporting events with fans getting very emotionally involved," the expert further explained to Breaking Israel News. "Just as modern sports fans go to great lengths using good luck charms and other superstitions to help their team, chariot fans did the same in ancient times."
