Decorated Lead Weight

The decoration belongs to the insular style of the late ninth century which is found in Ireland, the Isle of Man and Western Scotland. The weight would have been used with a set of hand scales, probably by a travelling merchant.   A lead weight inset with a triangular decorated gilded bronze mount. The decoration is divided into three bays. In each bay is a crouching animal with round eyes and a long snout. The bronze mount may originally have been a mount from a book or casket, looted from a monastery and set into the lead for re-use.   Other gilded mounts set into lead as weights have been found at Kirkton and Lochmaben. The other two were both found close to the line of the old Roman road running east-west across the region - perhaps it continued in use as the main landward route through to medieval times.