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Description: | Plano-convex object, perhaps a decorated spindle whorl. It is 22 mm in diameter and 11 mm tall, with a distinctly flat top. The central perforation flares very slightly from 6 mm wide at the top to 7 mm wide at the bottom, and is perhaps more sub-triangular than circular. Both the flat base and the convex upper surface are decorated with ring-and-dot motifs. Around the bottom of the convex face are blind-drilled holes the same size as the rings, and these alternate with nicks cut into the edge. Where there is room between the ring-and-dots these nicks extend into grooves which run right up to the edge of the perforation. Decoration on the base of a plano-convex whorl is unusual. Chris Mycock of Moyses Hall Museum has drawn attention to the similarity of this object to a fossil sea urchin, which can be found in East Anglia and which are occasionally found in archaeological contexts. The metal is also unusual; there is quite a lot of bubbly bright green corrosion, but the surface in between is a dark and quite silvery grey. Peter Northover has seen it and in his view (from a visual inspection only) it is a copper alloy with a high lead content, perhaps as much as 30%.
Original Image | Publisher: | http://finds.org.uk | Source: | Portable Antiquities | Identifier: | http://finds.org.uk/database/artefacts/r... | Go to resource |
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