Portable Antiquities Scheme blogs

As promised back in July I have had another interesting swivel:

SUSS-101B44 is of a more typical form than the one I highlighted previously (SUSS-225F31). It has a small loop with animal heads at the ends biting a domed centre from which projects a circular pin. This is the ‘male’ half of a two part swivel, similar to SF-CA5816.

What is particularly interesting to me is the remains of strap ends attached on to the loop of the swivel. Their form means they were attached during manufacture and couldn’t be removed. I had always assumed the straps simply went through the loop of the swivel and rubbed directly on it. This solution, with the strap ends, both reduces the wear on the strap if it is moving a great deal and also allows two straps to be taken off the same swivel.

A quick search has not brought up any parallels although more diligent searching might bring some to light. It may be this was a particular response to the need to take two straps off one swivel or to using straps of a different, less hard-wearing material, a woven strip rather than leather perhaps. Again this item sheds new light on a common class of artefact and helps us understand them in a different way and perhaps highlights again that this is a class of artefact that would benefit from more research.

This broken silver penny was recently brought in to me for recording, found near Lincoln.

Though the coin is broken, enough detail survives to tell us that it was struck at Canterbury around 823/6 for Baldred ‘King’ of Kent. You might be forgiven for not knowing anything about Baldred for he is only briefly mentioned in a couple of sources.

The obverse depicts a cross pattee with the legend [+]BALD[RED REX], ‘Baldred, King’. The reverse also depicts a cross pattee but has a legend reading  [+OB]A divided by (four) forked ends.

Despite the coin naming Baldred as King of Kent there is some doubt over this claim as the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle actually names Beornwulf as King of kent instead. Oddly though no coins were struck for him. Instead, coins were only struck for Baldred.

It is possible that Baldred was set up as an under-king by Beornwulf as had been done by a number of Kings before him.

Regardless, Baldred fled Kent when the West Saxon army invaded Kent in 826/7  and from then on disappears from the pages of history.

The wikipedia page for Baldred states that only 15 coins are known for him, though there are currently two recorded on the PAS database – the one from near Lincoln (LIN-C999B4) and the other from Northampton (NARC-0987A1). 

Notes for coin-geeks: The coin is a non-portrait variety with the reverse legend divided by (four) fourchee ends.This coin is paralled only by an example from Warwickshire recorded on the Fitzwilliams’ Early Medieval Coin Index no. 2004.0098, published in the Coin Register 2005, no,. 151. This coin is an unpublished variety of BLS BI.9 (North 215 with forks in place of the cross moline ends on the reverse).

Although the vast majority of finds I record are found by metal detectorists, every now and again I get something different in. This jetton was found by the father of the man who brought it in to me, in his market garden in the 1950s. The gardens now no longer exist, being underneath a housing estate in North Shields. Thankfully the man reporting the find remembered exactly where it used to be and so we have a good findspot. It does look rather wierd on the map, coming from such an urban area- but that shows the changes in the area in the last century.

The jetton is in good condition and has been identified as a French jetton, dating from c.1497-1521.  It has been recorded on the database if you would like to look more closely at it DUR-106F90.

 Obverse- SIT NOMEN BENEDICTVM (garbled); in centre V (for Virgo- Virgin Mary)

 Reverse- similar legend; in centre cross pattee with a flower in each angle

A jetton can be described a metal counter used in calculation of financial sums but not itself directly exchangeable for coins, goods or services. If you search the PAS database for jettons you will see there are just over 3800 examples recorded there.  Many of the examples found in Britain come from abroad, particularly France and the Low Countries, with c.800 coming from Nuremberg.  I chose to put this example onto my blog as although jettons are fairly common finds from metal detectorists this is a slightly unusual type and also came with a different discovery method.

French jetton

I’m afraid (or possibly rather pleased) it has been very busy here with many finds to record so I have not posted for a while. To make up for it here are three interesting finds from the last few weeks to bring to your attention, unusually two of them involve iron which due to its poor of preservation in disturbed contexts such as plough soil is often poorly represented  amongst the stray finds we deal with. The vast majority of iron items we see are either modern, where they can be identified usually from farm machinery, or small fragments which are so corroded and fragmentary as to make identification impossible.

SUSS-846943 is a contemporary copy of a Roman coin with an iron core and copper outer surface. If you zoom in closely on the image you can see where the iron core has rusted, expanded and ‘exploded’ through the copper surface. Contemporary copies (as opposed to modern fakes) of Roman coins are not uncommon. Firstly there are the very common copies of radiates and mid-to late 4th century nummi made in something close to the right metal but smaller in size. Secondly there are copper cored silver coins; these are also not rare, it sometimes feels like there are as many contemporary copies of later 2^nd century denarii out there as official types. Here are two typical silver plated copper cored coins in different states of preservation, the one on the right shows how the plating is often still in good condiiton and hard to spot.

Iron cored copies of precious metal coins are know (e.g. SUR-379FD1 and KENT-68D276) but are much rarer than copper cored examples. It could possibly be an accident of preservation with the iron rusting away to nothing but if that was the case you might expect more partially corroded and damaged examples to come to light, after all the gold and silver casings are not negligible in size. This suggests this coin is rare in general in having an iron core as well as being highly unusual as a plated copy of a copper coin.

The coin being copied is an As of Claudius I with Minerva on the reverse. Contemporary copies of these coins are not at all unusual, they are often crude and ‘barbarous’ in style with the left facing long necked head on the obverse and  figure advancing right with circular shield flanked by a large ‘S-C’ on the reverse being all that clearly remains of the original design, like this second example. There are many recorded on the database and using the new Roman numismatic search you can quickly pull out all the As of Claudius I for comparison.

Copies of Claudian As are common on early military sites and there is some suggestion that they may in fact have been minted semi-officially by local garrisons who were used to having small change to use for transactions. The argument runs that in the early days after the conquest there was not enough coinage in the country for soldiers everyday needs so they produced their own (see Boon, G. 1988, ‘Counterfeit Coins in Roman Britain’ in Casey & Reese eds., Coins and the Archaeologist London). Civilian populations in some areas, including Sussex, has also got used to low value coins including copper before the conquest and may have felt their lack and produced local alternatives.

In terms of ‘fakes’, excluding modern copies there are three main categories, firstly there are precious metals coins with cores of lower value metals, definitely contemporary copies or fakes designed to deceive, secondly there are smaller and crudely made ‘barbarous copies’ which don’t deceive for an instant and therefore must have been tolerated by the person paid in them, if not, usually, state officials, thirdly there are reasonably made copies in something that looks close to the original metal, these may have operated similarly to the second group or be passed off as genuine coins. While as a cored copy we would usually place this coin in the first category as part of a group with crudely copied designs it perhaps sits more happily in the second group. Interesting BH-40AF20 one of the few other iron cored copper coins I have traced is a barbarous radiate, again part of our second group of copies.

If both the buyer and seller happily use it to settle a transaction knowing it is not an ‘official coin’ we could argue it stops being a ‘fake’ and becomes something else, perhaps the best word for it is ‘token’ (but the long ‘when is a coin not a coin’ discussion is definitely one for another occasion…)

I just about have time for this short post -  Everyone is keeping me busy with new finds to record now that the metal detecting season is getting into full swing!!

I thought you may be interested in reading about Essex based detectorist Terry’s recent trip to Italy.

Terry was helping to spread the word about responsible metal detecting whilst participating as a volunteer at the Gabii Project,  an ongoing archaeological excavation that began back in 2007.

To see what the project is all about, visit the project website at http://sitemaker.umich.edu/gabiiproject/home.

Terry even wrote his own blog detailing his week on site http://bridgetsdads-bitofgabii.blogspot.com/