KEY (LOCKING)

Late Early-Medieval/ Early Medieval copper alloy slide key for a slide lock. It is 54.6mm in length and 18.3mm at its widest point. It weighs 8.25g. It has a pierced (5mm diameter) flat lozenge shaped collared terminal or handle, from presumably which it hung. The shaft is roughly circular in section and slightly faceted where it has been worked (5x4.5mm). To one side the lozenge handle has been worked c.0.5mm thinner than the shaft. Also on this side is a transverse ridge 0.9mm high, towards the 'slide' end of the key. The slide is T-shaped and openwork with a much smaller solid T extending from a small platform at the top of the first. This smaller T has a curved top. The openwork in the larger T is rectangular with a small openwork projection into the leg of the T and above, just below the platform of the smaller T. In the two smaller areas tiny fragments of copper alloy wire survive. In the larger area, at the centre of each short side, are two copper alloy stubs. Presumably these were further factors in the locking mechanism.

There is much discussion on these type of slide keys, known popularly as 'Viking keys', though only similar to known Viking keys (from dated contexts) in their shape. Kevin Leahy, Finds Advisor for the PAS, comments "they do look something like the keys that come from Viking graves and from Viking sites but I have never seen an example that had the 'T' shaped extension for the end of the bit and I can't actually see how this would have functioned in a slide lock". Geoff Egan, Finds Advisor for the PAS, comments "It is not of a type that has come up anywhere in London. That might well mean it is of Late Saxon/ Early Norman date since we are deficient in parts of material culture from that period".