Caught a bit of a podcast about a dig in Turkey that found a weird metal object

I was listening to a show while painting a house in Austin yesterday, and they said a team found a small, folded lead sheet with writing near an old temple site. The host said it might be a curse tablet, which is just a wild thing to think someone made thousands of years ago. What's the coolest everyday object you've read about that tells a big story?

3 comments

3 Comments

jamie_webb674d agoMost Upvoted

Found a Roman sandal with a footprint once, total time machine moment.

aaronsullivan5d ago

What's cooler than a curse? A really old shopping list. It's just a piece of broken pottery with someone's groceries on it, but it makes the past feel normal. My own grocery lists would just confuse future archaeologists.

alicecraig5d ago

Curse tablets are just scribbles on metal, but a shopping list on a broken pot? That’s boring paperwork from the past. The magic is in the strange stuff, like a folded lead sheet meant to ruin someone’s life. It shows real passion, maybe even fear. A list of olives and bread doesn’t have that same dark spark.