Find of the month | Allen Archaeology

It’s been a busy month at AAL with people off working all over the place. However, find of the month comes from a site worked on in 2015 and came to Cat and Yvonne’s attention while they were packing it up for sending to the museum.

I was working on a site in the center of Lincoln; near the river. It was a bright but cold day in February and half of our trench was partially filled with water. To avoid missing anything significant I was metal detecting the base of a partially excavated trench; as we knew we wouldn’t be able to excavate any further under these conditions.

The metal detector went BEEEEEEEEEEEEP; this was a full signal, implying that it was a strong signal; usually associated with a metal alloy. I used a little ruff neck spade to excavate the hole, and because of the water had to scoop out handfuls of sand; running them under the detector. The metal detector went off and I realised I was holding something round and metallic; a lead token.

One side of the token

The other side of the token

I gave it a further rinse, and recognised immediately what it was. I’ve found quite a few of these in the past, but this one was a bit more special; it is very good condition with markings on both sides. Tokens like this were used between the 16th and early 19th century. This one has likely been cast in a mold, rather than clipped. The specialist (Mike) believes it
might be a Powell Type 3 which would be of 18th century date (Powell 2012).

It was probably either a gaming piece, or it was token used instead of currency when money was scarce.

It’s a nice find because it indicates the use of the area during that period, further it was recovered from a medieval context suggesting that it was intrusive. The preservation of the piece and having markings both side makes it particularly special; and one of my favorites!

Powell, D. 2012 ‘The 18th century Sophistication of the Stock Design‘ Lead Token Telegraph Issue 86.

This post is the first of a new series of blogs detailing an exciting find that the Archives department have uncovered over the course of each month.

A Roman hygiene implement found during excavations in Navenby

The first artefact to feature is a copper alloy Roman nail-cleaner found on a community archaeological excavation in 2013. The archive team chose this artefact as it will be leaving Allen Archaeology to be archived at The Collection Museum in Lincoln. This is the final part of the community excavation undertaken in Navenby (which is 13km south of central Lincoln). The excavation was set up and excavated with the help of Volunteers from The Navenby Archaeological Group to investigate an area of the Roman town of Navenby. The artefact was found during these investigations.

The artefact (which can be seen in the picture below) is a Roman hygiene implement, specifically a nail cleaner. This is a toiletry set, in this case sitting on a metal ring; similar to a modern day key ring, with a square sectioned, well preserved decorated shaft and bifurcated terminal. This is a significant find due to the preservation of the decorations on the rectangular shaft and the bifurcated end. Similar nail-cleaners have been found in Colchester (Crummy 1983) but not including decorations extending down the length of the object, the decorations are usually limited to the upper portion of the object.

This nail cleaner would have been in use in Roman Navenby in the 3rd Century occupation of the town. For another example click here. Finds like these give us a personal insight into the everyday lives of the people of Roman Britain and are wonderful to find in such good condition.

Crummy, N, 1983, Colchester Archaeological Report 2: The Roman small finds from excavations in Colchester 1971-9 Colchester Archaeological Trust Ltd

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