Scroll was held in silver amulet worn by man buried outside Frankfurt between 230 and 270 AD
Frankfurt Inscription: An experimental computer tomography scan managed to digitally 'unroll' the scroll and present the 18-line message inside. Photograph: YouTubearchaeologists have presented to the world a third-century sensation: a miniature scroll they say is the oldest known written evidence of Christianity north of the Alps.
The thin silver scroll is at least 50 years older than previous documentary evidence of the spread of Christianity to northern Europe but, until now, could not be unrolled because of its fragility. The tiny silver amulet, called a phylactery, is just 3.5cm across and was found in the grave just below the chin of the dead man. The man’s Christian faith in that era and region was, researchers say, an absolute exception rather than the rule.
“Normally, such inscriptions in amulets were written in Greek or Hebrew,” said Prof Markus Scholz, an archaeologist and expert on Latin inscriptions at Frankfurt’s Goethe University.
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