A silver amulet found next to a skeleton in a 1,800-year-old grave in Germany speaks to the importance — and the risk — of being Christian in Roman times.

Archaeologists discovered a silver amulet containing an 18-line text showing the oldest known devotion to Christianity north of the Alps. Computer technology helped unravel the mystery of the text hidden within a silver amulet from the third century A.D.

A small silver amulet discovered by archaeologists in Germany could transform our understanding of how Christianity spread under the Roman Empire, experts have said.

Archaeologists uncovered a nearly 1,800-year-old amulet that offers new insight into the early spread of Christianity across the Roman Empire.

Researchers dated the grave where the amulet was found to between 230 and 270 AD. This is the earliest evidence of Christianity north of the Alps, the city said: All other finds are several decades younger, with "reliable evidence" of the religion in the region dating back to the 4th century.

In 2018, researchers found a tiny silver amulet in an ancient Roman grave near Frankfurt, Germany. The 1.4-inch-long artifact contained a roll of foil—a tiny scroll, which researchers didn’t dare remove for fear of breaking it apart.

Nestled amid the remains of a man thought to have been between 25 and 35, archaeologists in Germany found an object described as a "scientific sensation".

A 1,800-year-old silver amulet unearthed in a Roman-era German cemetery, bearing early Christian prayers, has been hailed as the oldest evidence of Christianity north of the Alps. The Latin inscription,