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For some commentary and references, particularly to the Roman deity terminus, the god of boundaries, see the following book, available online. It seems the charcoal underneath was more from a ritual planting of the boundary stone than for possible future events, but the ritual may have developed by the peasants as a result of the charcoal planting. ON a sidenote, a number of boundary pillars in northern Bangladesh belonging to the old Cooch Behar enclaves have disappeared over the years, because the farmers saw govt officials coming to make measurements etc from them, or rediscover them in thick copses, and the farmers assumed that the govt officials weren't really interested in the pillars as markers of local farm boundaries, but rather that the pillars must mark the burial spot of something important to the central govt, or themselves contain hidden gold, so either the pillars were removed to crack them open to find the supposed gold, or they were removed so the locals could dig for the treasure hidden beneath them... http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/tms/index.htm TABOO, MAGIC, SPIRITS: A STUDY OF PRIMITIVE ELEMENTS IN ROMAN RELIGION BY ELI EDWARD BURRISS [1931, copyright not renewed] see especially chapter 7, the section on the worship of stones, and footnote 19: http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/tms/tms09.htm "The boundaries between farms in ancient Latium were marked by terminal stones or by stocks of trees. Certain of these were regarded as gods and were worshiped from time immemorial. 19 Here we have one of the most primitive types of worship among the Romans. At first, doubtless, the stone itself--a fetish 20--was worshiped, then the spirit resident in the stone. Terminus seems never to have developed beyond the latter stage. Terminal stones were inserted in place with solemn ceremony. A hole was dug for the stone. Into it the blood of the sacrificial animal was allowed to drip, and into it were thrown the bones and ashes, together with incense and products of the farm. Upon these was rammed the terminal stone, properly oiled and garlanded. In later times, other objects were discovered under the stones--charcoal, shattered earthenware vessels, broken glass, bronze coins, and gypsum. On February twenty-third, in the country, the Terminalia marked the yearly dramatization of the original ceremony. 21 The owners of adjacent farms adorned their respective sides of the boundary stone with garlands; an altar was erected and fire was brought from the home hearth by the wife. An old man, having chopped up wood and piled it high, started the fire. Into it some of the produce of the farm was thrown three times from a basket. The onlookers made libations of wine. In historical times, the blood of a lamb and a suckling pig and, sometimes, of a kid was sprinkled on the stone; but it seems that in olden times blood sacrifice was forbidden. 22 Feasting and songs in praise of Terminus concluded the rites. The offerings to the stone increased its magic power of warding off evils from the farm and gave it strength to oppose all attempts to change the limits of the farm. " 19 Siculus Flaccus in Gromatici Veteres I. 141; the complete Latin text is to be found in Frazer, The Fasti of Ovid, Vol. II, p. 483, note 1. See also Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Antiquitates Romanae II. 74; Augustine, De Civitate Dei IV. 23; Fowler, The Roman Fertivals, pp. 324-327. 20 See F. B. Jevons, The Idea of God in Early Religions, p. 21. 21 For the Festival of Terminus see Ovid, Fasti II. 639-684; Horace, Epodi II. 59-60; Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Antiquitates Romanae II. 74; Festus: Terminus (Mueller, p. 368). 22 Plutarch, Quaestiones Romanae XV, Numa XVI. 1. At 12:55 AM 17/02/2006, Stuart Elden wrote: I wonder if anyone knows about this, or can add some detail - In St Augustine's City of God, which I've ploughed my way through, there is a passage where he talks about the properties of charcoal. He says that charcoal is remarkable in that it is brittle and can be broken easily, but durable that moisture and age cannot destroy it. He then makes the following claim “it is customary to put charcoal under boundary marks [limites] when they are set up, to refute any litigant who might come forward at any time in the remote future and maintain that a stone fixed in earth was not a boundary stone” (Book XXI, Chapter 4). Any ideas of whether this actually happened? The editor's note (Penguin ed., p. 969) says 'this is obscure' and that charcoal was put under a temple to give it stability but gives no other reference. It's hardly central to his argument so I've found no reference in the secondary literature. Any info gratefully received. thanks Stuart Department of Geography Durham University Brendan Whyte Geography Department Hebrew University of Jerusalem