Roman Religion: Decoding Tombstones

Author: Marsden, D., (2011), “Decoding your Roman tombstones”, first published in The Imperial Courier, Volume 6, Issue 4, THE RMRS, pp. 8-10.

Introduction What follows was first produced by Anne Thomas © in 1987. Ever since it has been used as a beginners guide to deciphering Roman tombstones. Most inscriptions follow a set pattern, but there are many variations, omissions and additions. The working example below, therefore, is a combination of several tombstones. Furthermore, it is worth noting that:

• If the pattern does not seem to work, then perhaps you are looking at an altar.

• Many words in an inscription are abbreviated, so the rest of the word is shown below in small capitals after the inscribed letters.

• Words are often squashed together or spill over from one line to the next, so the Romans separated them with dots or small triangles.