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Description: | Cast lead-alloy pilgrim's badge in the shape of an ampulla dating from the medieval period, i.e. the 12th-15th century. Complete. It weighs 37g and the dimensions are:53mm long, flask part 40mm dia, neck 20mm long x 30mm wide (top), 25mm at base. The ampulla is mainly complete except for a small fragment missing from the top. Both handles are intact. The surfaces of ob- and reverse are very worn and the image is no longer clear. It may have been floral or a St Catherine's wheel with a zig-zag border. Brian Spencer (p. 57ff) writes: "Ampullae or miniature phials were another important kind of pilgrim souvenir. Generally flask-shaped, but with a narrow, flattish section, they were designed to contain a dose of the thaumaturgic water that was dispensed to pilgrims at many shrines and holy wells. Like pilgrim badges, ampullae, too, were normally made of tin or lead or tin-lead alloy and were provided with a pair of handles or loops so that they could be conveniently suspended from a cord or chain around the wearer's neck. Coming into use in the last quarter of the twelfth century, they were, in England, almost the only kind of pilgrim souvenir to be had during the thirteenth century. They were nevertheless available at a number of shrines and, thanks to returning pilgrims or to local entrepreneurs, probably featured as secondary relics in virutally every thirteenth-century English parish church. Until the early fourteenth century, ampullae took various forms, were frequently inscribed and usually bore representations of the cult-figure or relic that they were intended to commemorate."
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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