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Description: | Stone weight. Bright white limestone, possibly magnesian limestone outcropping near Tadcaster, Doncaster etc. Yorkshire. Now of sub-ovoid form, possibly due to a large chip along one side incurred in antiquity. The weight is flat-sided and has an hourglass-shaped aperture of 55-34mm diameter drilled from both sides. The finder kindly notes a carved feature on one flat side. This may be formed as a simple cross with the ends of two adjacent arms bent at right angles in the manner of a swastika, or, if one arm is discounted for its relative shallowness, as a letter Y or H [see inset illustration]. The marking is formed by the juxtaposition of a series of pits of diameter c.5mm, probably by non-professional pecking on the part of its user.The form resembles that of smaller holed stone weights recorded along the Upper Thames, which are considered likely to have weighted fishing nets deployed by medieval fisheries; these find brick skeuomorphs closer to London which may extend the duration of the activity they represent into post-medieval times. Larger and less regular forms secured by tied wrap-around fastenings occur on the midlands Great Ouse, where their use to weight fish traps has been proposed (Steane and Foreman 1988).The adaption of a cross motif could have occurred to an illiterate medieval fisherman, or the use of a letter to his post-medieval equivalent, in both cases distinguishing ownership of tackle attached to the weight. The pelleted construction of a letter H or Y with a markedly curved single limb could fit either period, though its use might be deemed more likely more recently. The medieval quarrying of magnesian limestones in the very considerable catchment of the Humber is thought to have begun in the course of the 12th century, and was still significant to major building projects in the late 17th century (e.g. for the facing of the sea wall at the Hull Citadel, Howes and Foreman 1999). Suggested date: Unknown, Medieval to Post-Medieval, 1200-1700.Length: 295mm, Width: 200mm, Thickness: 75mm. Too heavy to be weighed at NLM.
Original Image | Publisher: | http://finds.org.uk | Source: | Portable Antiquities | Identifier: | https://finds.org.uk/database/artefacts/ | Go to resource |
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