SEAL

A military lead sealing dating to the Roman period. The sealing is rectangular in shape and section. The obverse of the sealing is struck with letters LVI (leg(io) VI). The lower surface has a rectangular die and is struck with the legend [O]VA although this obscured by damage to the piercing. A piercing runs vertically through the sealing and is visible in the upper wall of the sealing and as a oval depression on its lower surface. The sealing measures 15mm in length and 20mm in width and has a thickness of 8mm.

This sealing forms a group with NCL-E103D5, NCL-E11FD7 and NCL-7C6E33 in that they all have obverses struck with the legend LVI and reverses with the legend OVA. The obverse die is different from the other three LVI dies found in the Piercebridge assemblage. The reverse die is bordered, top and bottom, by a row of pellets. NCL-7C6E33 is badly damaged, but it is clear that the same pair of dies was used for all four sealings. The same pair seems also to have been used for the only other example of this combination, RIB II.1, 2411.70 (South Shields).

The first letter of the reverse is undoubtedly O, not Q or reversed C. Since OVA is impossible as the initials of tria nomina, and there is no name attested in Ova(...), the die should be read retrograde as AVO. RIB expands this to a(la) Vo(contiorum), but the two sealings explicitly of this unit (RIB II.1, 2411.90 and Britannia 47 (2016), 393, No. 6) abbreviate its name to AVOC. There is no independent evidence to associate this ala directly with the legion, so as to cause them to issue joint-sealings, nor any other legionary sealing that associates an ala with a legion. Legionary sealings are quite common (RIB II.1, 2411.42­-80), but their reverses all consist of the EXP formula, or the initials of tria nomina, sometimes explicitly those of a centurion. Although a(la) Vo(contiorum) is possible, therefore, a more likely expansion is A(ulus) V(...) O(...). Once again the most likely nomen would be Valerius, but there are other possibilities such as Ulpius