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