SEAL

A military lead sealing dating to third or fourth century AD. The seal is rectangular in plan and in section. The obverse is struck with the legend 'LVI' (​leg(io) VI​) and the reverse with the legend 'LSP' (​L(ucius) S(...) P(...)​).The sealing is pierced horizontally with the piercings visible in section at each end. There is a white material in the piercings, presumably the remains of the textile chord. The sealing measures 16mm in length, 19mm in width and 5mm in thickness.

This sealing forms a group with NCL-E133D6; NCL-810A22; BM-F1A8BB and BM-E2EE55 in that they all bear the same obverse and reverse legends. The reverse of BM-E2EE55 is bady damaged, with only the tail surviving of S, but the die seems to be the same as that for the reverse of BM-F1A8BB. The die also seems to be the same as the reverse of NCL-E133D6 and NCL-7EDFD8, but the state of preservation is different. BM-F1A8BB was cast in a rectangular matrix and its underside is gouged as if it were levered out. BM-E2EE55 is more or less flat-bottomed, but there is no trace of lettering.

Two 'North Yorkshire' sealings of the sixth legion (Britannia 29 (1998), 439-40, Nos. 28 and 29) bear the initials LSS on the reverse, and the coincidence of letters with LSP raises the possibility that both men were L(ucius) S(eptimius), a combination adopted by some legionaries who gained citizenship in the reign of Septimius Severus. But many other expansions are possible, and Lucius Servaeus Sabinus provides a cautionary instance: he was certainly a centurion of the Sixth Legion Victrix (CIL iii 14398), but this was before it came to Britain, since he later became a centurion of its predecessor, the Ninth Legion Hispana (AE 1930, 109). And likewise, neither of the Sixth Legion centurions mentioned above with the initials CIM can be linked to the leather off-cut stamped CIM found at Vindolanda (RIB II.4, 2445.1): this belongs to the period AD 97-103, at least fifteen years before the legion came to Britain