STEELYARD

A worn cast copper-alloy object: probably an incomplete post-medieval steelyard. Steelyards are portable scales with beam arms of unequal lengths, and they were used in this country from the Roman period onwards. This example consists of a shorter arm rectangular in shape and section, and a longer beam arm of circular section which has been broken as a result of old damage. The shorter arm is 47.9mm long and tapers slightly from a width of 11.6mm at the junction of the arms to 10.1mm where it terminates. It also decreases gradually from a thickness of 4.7mm at the junction of the arms to 2.1mm at the terminal. It features three circular perforations central along the width: one at the terminal end, one at the junction end, and one near the centre, slightly nearer the terminal. They are all around 5.6mm in diameter. Two feature oval penannular copper-alloy suspension rings, namely the central hole and the hole near the junction of the arms. The longer beam arm survives over a length of 60.2mm. It has a diameter of 5.4mm. On one side, the continuation of one of the narrower sides of the shorter arm, are ten extant transverse incisions at regular intervals of 5.2mm. On the side opposite there further transverse incisions, 12.4mm apart. The first of these, however, is 31.4mm from the junction of the arms as compared with the other face where they begin immediately (that is, after 5.2mm). Central, between the second set of marks described are punched dots: these are c. 12.9mm apart from each other. Unfortunately the object has been broken before any pattern can be confirmed; this occurred just after a point where the arm narrowed to a diameter of 4.3mm. Further to this damage, the shorter arm has been bent out of its presumably former straight alignment. The rings and the longer arm have a chocolate brown patina.