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Description: | Globular steelyard weight made from lead sheathed in a thick cast copper alloy case. It is flattened at the top to accommodate a triangular lug with circular perforation. Just below the flattened top is a band of engraved ornament, consisting of an upper and lower border around nine triangles or shield-shapes, each decorated with two (or in one case three) horizontal lines. Below this, the body of the weight is decorated with three relief-cast shields each with three chevrons. Between the chevrons the background is keyed as if for enamel. These arms are those of Clare (three red chevrons on a yellow ground) and so they were almost certainly never enamelled. Between two of the shields is a hole which has been plugged with a piece of copper-alloy plate. At various points around the case are the remains of at least five iron pins. It is thought that these held the inner and outer moulds together while casting the copper-alloy case. After casting, the inner clay mould would have been scraped out through the hole, and lead would have been poured in. The hole would then have been plugged, although it must have remained a source of weakness as there is a crack running from it. The iron pins were then filed down. Biddle 1990 (Object and Economy in Medieval Winchester) suggests that the use of iron pins went out in the course of the 13th century. The date of this weight, however, may be fixed more securely by the arms, as the holder of the monopoly on steelyard weights, Edmund Earl of Cornwall, married Margaret de Clare in 1272 and died in 1300. However we have no documentary evidence for this monopoly, the only evidence being that all the weights with cast heraldry have the arms of the Earl of Cornwall in some form. It weighs 945g, which is 2 lb. 1.35 oz. It is unusual for weights to be slightly over-weight. | Publisher: | http://finds.org.uk | Source: | Portable Antiquities | Identifier: | http://finds.org.uk/database/artefacts/r... | Go to resource |
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