Semeseilam

Abstract

The gold tablet was discovered in a sepulcher in 1941 or 1943 by Franck Delage at La Vedrenne, near Plénartige (canton d’Etymoutiers, Haute-Vienne). Photographs of the piece came to M. Blanchet, who published it with only a facsimile, but provided little additional information. Then in 1983 it was re-published by Joffroy independently (again with only a facsimile), but including a valuable archaeological report: the lamella was found by a farmer in a cremation burial consisting of a large cubical block of stone, measuring 0,80 m. on a side. The slab had been hollowed-out and contained inside a large (H. 30.0 cm.), bluish-green glass cinerary urn (Joffroy 1983: 695, fig. 1) datable to the end of the first century A. D. The sepulchral slab was surmounted by another pyramidal stone block. Inside the glass urn thoroughly carbonized vestiges of the skeleton of a young person were found, and among the ashes and bones the following three tiny gold objects were discovered: 1) a small gold cabochon concave at the bottom and perhaps originally used to contain an amulet (weight: 0,86g); 2) a simple, rolled-up cylinder of gold-foil (approx. 2.0 cm. long), evidently used as a capsule but too oxydized to be unrolled (weight: 3,2 g); and 3) another gold capsule, like the preceding, but containing a retrievable gold lamella.