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Description: | Early Medieval lead weight, Viking in style, sub-circular in plan and domed. It has glass set into the centre of the top face in a sub-rectangular shape. The glass appears to be a fragment cut from a bracelet or bead. It is light blue with strands of red and white running through. The rest of the weight is plain and undecorated. On the sides and base are some small grooves, probably caused by the plough whilst in the ground.There is a lead weight set with a glass bangle fragment from Dumbarton Rock, Strathclyde where the glass is the usual blue and white of Irish bangles. The red is unusual if it is a bangle fragment but it is difficult to tell whether it is a bead or a bangle fragment.Susan Youngs has seen a photograph of this object and kindly provided some background information on this object type;'It was usual for weights like this to have offcuts of some pretty but not valuable metalwork set in them, normally Irish but sometimes Anglo-Saxon, while the lead pieces are a Viking period cultural phenomenon. They are usually thought to be weights and have been found with scales but a mass of lead pieces, many conical, from Gainsborough have been called gaming pieces - another possiblity, board games were popular.'
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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