Lead Seals (Other than Cloth Seals) (2001 guide)

Please note that this guide has not been fundamentally changed from the original print version of the Finds Recording Guide (Geake 2001), written when the database contained just 8,800 non-numismatic records.

Introduction

This guide covers small multi-functional lead seals used to close bags of seed or fertilizer (including guano), Russian examples for flax bales (Sullivan 2002; PeaceHavens Project website), or seals on lorries and mail sacks, or even on gas meters date to the late 19th or early 20th centuries.

Similarly, 19th- or early 20th-century kosher seals are beginning to turn up in some areas.  They are lead, and differ in construction from those mentioned at the back of Egan (1994) in that they have no rivet, but rather a hole at the top in which a wire or string was presumably fixed.  There is an inscription in Hebrew on both sides, stating the authority of the Beth Din, and giving the name of the Chief Rabbi in office at the time.

PAS object type to be used

Use SEAL; cloth seals are covered in their own guide and recorded separately

PAS object classification to be used

Add Russian or kosher, as applicable

Date

Most of these seals will be late post medieval or modern in date.  Seals from earlier periods are known, however, and are significant objects.

Examples

Seals: post-medieval to modern kosher seal (top, BH-D374D4); post-medieval Russian flax seal (bottom, SOM-20E370). Copyright: The Portable Antiquities Scheme; Somerset County Council; CC-BY licence)
Seals: post-medieval to modern kosher seal (top, BH-D374D4); post-medieval Russian flax seal (bottom, SOM-20E370). Copyright: The Portable Antiquities Scheme; Somerset County Council; CC-BY licence)

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Key references

Egan 1994

Sullivan 2002