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Description: | Incomplete copper alloy shell of a globular steelyard weight, missing about a third of its surface area and all of its lead core. It is 63.7mm in diameter and stands 53.5mm to the flat top (72.8mm inclusive of loop). It weighs 145.98g.The loop is triangular in shape and 7-8mm in thickness. It is pierced by a 8.3mm diameter hole, rather elongated at the top to 9.1mm high. The loop is 32.5mm wide.The flat top from which the loop extends is 42mm in diameter. Below this is a frieze consisting of two parallel grooves with a zig-zag groove between, creating a border of triangles. Every other triangle is decorated with two horizontal grooves. Part of the frieze (circa one third) is missing where the weight is damaged just below the flat top.Below the freize are two shields in relief, the third missing due to damage. They are triangular in shape with a slight outward curve in the long edges. One shield depicts a lion rampant, the arms of Poitou and also for Edmund, Earl of Cornwall. The second depicts three chevrons and is the arms of de Clare. Edmund married Margaret de Clare in 1272. The third shield would likely have depicted the double-headed eagle (the arms of the Hansa merchants) or perhaps the arms of England (three lions).The inside surface is covered with a series of apparantly intentional parallel and diagonal grooves. Perhaps this serves as practice for the execution of the frieze?Steelyard weights would have been made by Edmund on behalf of the king. Edmund died in 1300 and the use of steelyards banned in 1350, so this weight is likely to date between 1272 and 1300/ 1350. Copies of steelyard weights were also made. The originals tended to have the frieze, as this one does, and three or four shields usually depicting the arms mentioned above. Copies often had shields with incised decoration, and not relief, and often had unrecognisable or fictional arms.
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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