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Description: | Cast copper alloy unfinished signet finger-ring which was used as a seal as well as a pipe tamper. The bezel would have most likely been engraving with the owner's initials. The sides of the ring have been engraved with a leaf pattern surrounding the bezel on either side on the upper half of the hoop. The central area between the two sides of the stem of the tamper contain iron corrosion products, suggesting there may have been an steel swivel tool held in place by a pin at its base (see Bailey, DF1, 1992, p.66, No.43). The tool would have had a tamper on one end to push the new tobacco into the pipe (see Bailey, DF1, 1992, p.66, No.48), and a scraping tool on the other end to scrape out the old tobacco. A hard metal like steel would have been necessary in order to scrape out the carbon in this way. Crummy (1988) illustrates a similar example with a completed bezel carrying initials flanked by foliage, on page 68, Fig.68, No.2996, which was unstratified. Bailey (DF1) illustrates two examples on page 61, Nos.12 & 13, which are dated from the mid-17th century to the early 18th century.
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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