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Description: | A cowry / cowrie shell which has been modified by human agency by filling it with lead at an unknown date. One possibility is that it was used as an Anglo-Scandinavian weight.The shell has a hole in the rounded upper face which has been plugged with lead. The toothed opening on the underside is also partially obscured by the metal filling which projects from the face of the shell. The shell and metal combined are 21.9mm long, 17.4mm wide and 9.7mm thick. 12.1g.There is no evidence of attachment nor any loop mounted into the metal which would have allowed use as a button or necklace component, so the function of this object is uncertain.Cowrie shells have been used for a varitety of purposes from Prehistoric times onwards, and around the globe. Cowrie shells with opposing perforations have been found on several Mesolithic sites in west coast Scotland, though the use of lead in this example suggests a date from the Roman period onwards. The cowrie shells that occur naturally on British beaches do not usually grow more than 12mm long, which suggests that this example has been imported or traded as some point in the past. For examples of use around the world and further details, see pdf/Final_Reports/Hardy_Worked_and_modified_shell.pdfAnother lead filled cowrie shell has been recorded on the PAS database as NLM-AAF2D2 which is interpreted as an Anglo-Scandinavian weight. Martin Foreman points out that cowrie shells are found as exotica in Anglo-Saxon graves (for example, LIN-E82622), but that the addition of lead to the example he has recorded brings it up to a mass which could correspond with two units of either 4.07gms and 4.43 gms which are respectively associated with Scandinavia and Viking Age Dublin. Interestingly, the South Yorkshire example has been filled through a hole in the outer face of the shell, like NLM-AAF2D2, and the mass of 12.1g could be interpreted as a multiple of three of the Viking measuring units he identifies. Accordingly, an Early Medieval date is suggested along with the possibility of weight as the function, but the object could have been made at any point from Roman to Modern times, and could have had many other functions.Another example of a lead filled cowrie shell is held in the Jefferson Patterson Museum, Maryland, and is though of as being an unusual find. See http://www.jefpat.org/CuratorsChoiceArchive/2008CuratorsChoice/JAN2008-ModifiedCowrieShell.html
Original Image | Publisher: | http://finds.org.uk | Source: | Portable Antiquities | Identifier: | https://finds.org.uk/database/artefacts/ | Go to resource |
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