# Frankfurt silver inscription

50°9′18.8″N 8°37′37.3″E﻿ / ﻿50.155222°N 8.627028°E﻿ / 50.155222; 8.627028
The Frankfurt silver inscription is an 18-line Latin engraving on a piece of silver foil, housed in a protective amulet dating to the mid-3rd century AD. Due to its reference to Jesus Christ, it represents the oldest known evidence of Christianity north of the Alps, and from its explicit invocation of Saint Titus, it is the earliest evidence of the Christian practice and belief of the veneration and intercession of saints. The amulet was discovered in 2018 during archaeological excavations at a cemetery near the former Roman town of Nida, located in the northwestern suburbs of Frankfurt am Main.
The amulet was intended to ward off demons, and invokes Jesus and Saint Titus for protection. It contains the earliest known written use of the Trisagion. The amulet quotes lines from the Epistle to the Philippians in Latin translation.

## Discovery

In her work about Nida, Ingeborg Huld-Zetsche [de] presented an overview of the multiple burial sites at Nida, a Roman border town that was inhabited from the 1st until the late 3rd centuries. The existence of a grave field near Heilmannstraße in Frankfurt's Praunheim district has been known since the 19th century, with a total of twelve burials excavated between 1893 and 2016. In 2017, an archaeological excavation at Heilmannstraße 10 revealed the presence of an entire cemetery. During a second dig in 2018, more of the site was excavated, and a total of 127 burials were identified.
Among the burials was a man aged approximately 35 to 45. Beneath his chin, archaeologists found a silver amulet capsule measuring 35 mm (1.4 in) in length and 9 mm (0.35 in) in width. Inside the capsule was a rolled, folded, and crumpled silver foil, 91 mm (3.6 in) long. Based on burial goods, including an incense burner and a mug made of baked clay, the burial was dated to between 230 and 270. Isotopic analysis of the remains, aimed to determine the man's origins, are underway; however, as of 2024, the results of that analysis are pending.
During restoration at the Frankfurt Archaeological Museum [de], the amulet and silver foil were separated. In 2019, X-ray imaging revealed the presence of an inscription on the inside of the silver foil. The thin, fragile foil could not be unrolled physically, so it was scanned via computed tomography by the Leibniz Center for Archaeology [de] and Goethe University Frankfurt. A 3D model of the foil was created, enabling virtual unrolling.
The artifact and its inscription were publicly unveiled during a December 2024 press conference in Frankfurt am Main, after which the piece was added to the permanent collection of the Frankfurt Archaeological Museum.

## The inscription

   [in nomi?]NE SANCTI TITĪ AGIOS AGIOS AGIOS [in] NOMINE IHS XP DEI F(ilii) [...] QVONIAM IHS XP OMNES{T} GENVA FLECTENT CAELESTES TERRESTRES ET INFERI ET OMNIS LINGVA CONFITEATVR
   [In the name?] of St. Titus. Holy, holy, holy! In the name of Jesus Christ, Son of God! [...] That at the name of Jesus Christ every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and on earth, and under the earth, and every tongue should confess
The text on the silver foil invokes the name of the Christian God for protection. The inscription refers to Jesus Christ multiple times and identifies him as the Son of God.
It is mostly complete, except for a few gaps on the left margin that can be interpreted in different ways. In the first three lines, the text invokes Saint Titus, followed by a Trisagion ("holy, holy, holy") and a reference to Jesus Christ, Son of God. This is followed by several sentences that praise Jesus. In the final six lines, it quotes Paul's Christ poem, Philippians 2:10–11, in an early Latin translation.
The writing, a mixture of majuscule and minuscule cursives, can be dated to the 3rd century.

## Significance

The 3rd-century piece functioned as a magical protective amulet, meant to ward off demons and safeguard its wearer. At that time, Christians were still subject to persecution within the Roman Empire.
Most other known early Christian amulets feature writing in Greek or Hebrew, but not Latin. Its sophisticated style indicates that the writer was an elaborate scribe.
According to the archaeologist Markus Scholz [de], what is unique about this inscription is that it exclusively features Christian content rather than polytheistic elements. Similar artifacts often invoke various deities, whereas this inscription completely lacks elements from Judaism or paganism. It was only in the 5th century that amulets made of precious metal stopped commonly representing a variety of different faiths in parallel. The only comparable artifact from an area east of the Rhine comes from a child's grave at the Roman bath ruins of Badenweiler, and that inscription invoked both the Christian-Jewish God and a Germanic spring deity. The meaning of the artifact for the history of early Christianity remains a subject of further study. For example, according to Scholz, it must now be examined whether the Latin version of Paul's letter to the Philippians is the oldest source for it to date.
According to the church historian Wolfram Kinzig [de] from the University of Bonn, the inscription is among the earliest attestations of the New Testament in Roman Germania. It also marks the first known usage of the Trisagion anywhere in the Christian liturgy.
Scholars believe the discovery necessitates rewriting the history of the spread of Christianity in northern Europe, pushing back its known history by 50 to 100 years. While there is indirect evidence for Christian communities in Gaul and Upper Germania, like the persecution of Christians in Lugdunum (modern Lyon) in 177, the first reliable evidence of Christianity north of the Alps until now was a mention of Maternus, bishop of Cologne, who participated in the Synod of Rome in 313.