twelve thousand years unfolding
sounds by Chris Cundy / projections by Dominyka Vinčaitė
2024
A four-piece vintage speaker array featuring multi-channel recordings of ancient Celtic and Roman curse tablets from The Roman Baths spoken by a variety of voices in over fifteen different languages. Incorporating a circular floor projection of water surfaces filmed at the Sacred Spring in Bath. Displayed at Hardwick Gallery as part of A Sound Map of The Roman Baths exhibition in 2024.
About the Curse Tablets and Spring Origins
There are three hot springs at Bath emerging at temperatures of 45~46°C which is unique in the British Isles. The Sacred Spring (or Kings Bath) is situated within The Roman Baths and it provides the source for various water channels, pools, outer baths, and the Great Bath which is at the centre of the site. The water is known to be meteorological in origin, falling on the surrounding Mendip Hills as far back in time as twelve thousand years and descending to depths of at least 2500 m before being drawn back up to the surface through a geological fault that is probably unique to the area.
Around 130 Roman and Celtic curse tablets were discovered at Bath. Inscribed onto small sheets of lead-alloy and tin, these curious messages were folded up and deposited at the Sacred Spring during ancient times. They represent offerings to the goddess Sulis Minerva, a conflation of the pre-Roman water deity Sulis and the nearest Roman equivalent, Minerva, the goddess of wisdom, healing, and strategic warfare.
Visitors, collaborators, students, and experts, as well as participants from all round the world were invited to read the curse tablets and their excavated voices guide us through the Sound Map. They speak of deceptions, events and fates that have been embedded, remembered, unfolded again, and lodged into our imagination. Transcriptions were sourced from Tabellae Sulis, Roman Inscribed Tablets of Tin and Lead from the Sacred Spring at Bath, by Roger Tomlin: Oxford University Committee for Archaeology, 1988.