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Description: | A very worn and heavily restored late early-medieval barrel-shaped weight. It is biconical in form with flattened top and bottom surfaces. The weight has the remains of an iron core surrounded by a largely incomplete and heavily repaired/restored copper-alloy casing. On the flattened top and bottom surfaces the casing has stamped decoration. This comprises at least two rectilinear motifs formed from parallel transverse grooves from which at either and and at the centre extend short vertical and curvilinear strokes. These motifs appear almost like crowns stacked one above the other, although it has to be wondered whether they are in fact representations or imitations of, for example, Islamic silver coinage (Dirhams) for which these weights are often associated. The decorative elements at each end of the weight are each contained within a pelleted or beaded circle. Due to the preservation of the object, and restoration post-recovery, the precise form and weight of the object, as well as the full extent of the decorative elements is uncertain. It measures 35.71mm in diameter, 25.87mm in thickness/height, and 137.95g in current weight. Similar weights have been recorded through the PAS from Suffolk (e.g. SF-042327, SF-334CE5 and SF-B137C2) as well as a published example illustrated in Biggs (1994: 14). Biggs notes that at some time in the 11th century a light ounce of c24g, derived from the Viking weight known as ora, was used for weighing gold. Weights related to this standard are, as this example, barrel-shaped, and made or iron with a copper-alloy casting. The current example is likely to be of similar origin and perhaps related to weighing of bullion and silver in Viking period exchanges (cf. SWYOR-E16C55). This might indicate a date range in the 9th-11th centuries for the current object.
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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