Rights Holder: The Portable Antiquities Scheme
CC License:
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Unique ID: LANCUM-F67F76
Object type certainty: Certain
Workflow
status: Awaiting validation
Lead musket ball. Cast ball with a flattened circumferential belt from set up and with slight longitudinal striations on that belt from gas erosion, both effects occurring at the moment of firing an unwadded projectile. The ball is flattened at one end relative to the evidence for its position in the gun barrel, probably from its inclusion at one end of a multiple load. The mass, at well over an ounce, suggests this to be for use with a smoothbore muzzle loading firearm of military specification. This is closer to the formal weight of a 17th-century musket ball, which was defined as 12 bore: i.e. twelve balls to the averdepois pound. This mass is suggested by Glenn Foard of the Battlefields Trust to be apt to musket ball of the English Civil War (1642-1652). Shot of this weight has been associated with the use of carbines by Harding (2012). Both the use of a multiple load and the failure to wad the ball might suggest this particular ball was used in the context of hurried 'active service' rather than in a more leisured setting. Suggested date: Post-Medieval, 1600-1800. The diameter is 20mm and the weight 30.13g.
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Subsequent action after recording: Returned to finder
Broad period: POST MEDIEVAL
Period from: POST MEDIEVAL
Period to: POST MEDIEVAL
Date from: Circa AD 1600
Date to: Circa AD 1800
Quantity: 1
Weight: 30.13 g
Diameter: 20 mm
Date(s) of discovery: Monday 3rd July 2017 - Monday 3rd July 2017
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4 Figure: SD5830
Four figure Latitude: 53.76464569
Four figure longitude: -2.63861317
1:25K map: SD5830
1:10K map: SD53SE
Grid reference source: From finder
Unmasked grid reference accurate to a 100 metre square.
No references cited so far.