Bulla With A Hole

 

                 Portable Antiquities Scheme        

This is an interesting metal detecting find, the latest to be recorded by HESH, coming from near Bringsty. 

SPINDLE WHORL Unique ID: HESH-422BFE

A spindle whorl made from a circular cast lead medieval papal bulla of Pope Urban V (AD 1362-1370). The bulla has been deliberately defaced or reused by piercing/cutting a large circular perforation through the centre. The hole is irregular and positioned off centre, respecting the heads of Peter and Paul and the inscription above. The bulla measures 33.29mm in diameter, the central hole has a diameter of 8.82mm, 5.81mm in thickness, and weighs 35.88g. [correction: the hole weighs nothing - PMB] The front of the bulla shows the name of the pope, written in the nominative, with his abbreviated title: PP: Pastor Pastorum - Shepherd of Shepherds - and ordinal number V. This is distributed over three lines: URB / AN[V]S / PP V. The central pierced hole removes only a small part of the inscription. The reverse depicts the faces of Saints Peter and Paul. Over the images appears the abbreviation of St Paul and St Peter 'SPA SPE'. St Paul is depicted with a long beard and a balding scalp with little hair, and St Peter has a crimped beard with curly hair formed from small sub oval pellets. Both heads are enclosed within a border of pellets. The area between the two heads is lost due to the pierced hole. The papal bulla is a mid-grey-cream colour with an even and well formed patina which covers all surfaces. There are several small chips in the patina which have exposed the grey metal beneath. This damage is likely to have been due to movement in the plough soil.

Or not. Could have happened in a finds pouch too. There are a number of assumptions here, that the off-centre hole does not preclude it being a spindle whorl the photo shows a grey blob with little visible detail, the description describes detail, if the photo crap as archaeological documentation or is the description fudged from analogy?

Why does the data field in the public database not say who created this record and when? In the description page it is anonymised, yet from the statistics, we find it was (reportedly) created by Ian Bass on Monday 10th October 2022. Why can this information not be available in one place rather than having to chase around for it? Are the authors of these texts somehow ashamed of their work that they are loathe to put their names under these descriptions?