Help with a lead egg

[Jon1987]

Hi guys

While out the other day I found a lump of lead in the shape of an egg. It's about half the size of a regular chicken egg, maybe slightly larger than a quails egg.

The only ID I can find is on the Colchester Club site. They have a couple they name as a "18th century sewing egg"

Not sure what one of these might be though.


It has no holes or iron stains on it. It's completely solid lead.

Any help would be great thanks

Jon

[Mike]

find yourself a lead chicken and hatch it out mate 

[Tafflaff (Rob)]

Are you sure its not an egg shaped palm guard ?

[Jon1987]

An egg shaped palm guard, what would one of those look like Rob?

[Tafflaff (Rob)]

Heres one on ukfd, not a good pic though.  The one I've got is the same shape and flat on the underside. Used to push through a thick needle when sowing thick materials.

[Jon1987]

Ah yeah I see. But the one I got isn't flat. It's actual egg shaped. Like full on out of a chickens bum shape lol 

[Chef Geoff]

A bit difficult to give any informed view without a pic and although although yours sounds a little big, Google "Roman lead slingshot ammo" and see if that looks similar

[Jon1987]

Quite close Geoff, but as you can see, not so pointy...

[Chef Geoff]

Ooooh! I wouldn't worry about pointedness. Now seeing it, it would be my first guess.

[Jon1987]

Cheers Geoff! How certain would you be? It does look very similar to some pictures out there.

[Chef Geoff]

Never (thankfully) having faced a detachment of funditores and copping one in the nut, I couldn't be 100% but I think it could be worth a show and tell to your FLO.
Lead unfortunately is the oldest man worked metal and because it can be melted in a normal cooking pot, it's been used by your average Joe for millennia for all sorts of things. As it has come out of unstratified soil then your best hope is a context ie if other items from the early Roman period have turned up from that area that only the FLO or HER may know about.

[Val Beechey]

As Geoff said, it's a well used metal for all sorts, by all sorts.

There are 2 other possiblities. You mentioned sewing. Could well have been used for darning. Something that is little known about these days.
The other is a false egg. Commonly made of crockery these days. I used then to encourage the hens to lay.

Val

[Jon1987]

Thanks for the input guys. I think Marion Paige from Dyfed archeology will be at the next Pembrokeshire Prospectors meeting so I will let her take a look at it.

I did think about the false egg thing Val, iv used porcelain ones with my hens in the past. This lead one maybe slightly too small though? Mind, if it's a few hundred years old, maybe the eggs were not quite as big as we are used to these days.

Darning? I'm afraid im totally ignorant to such a process. Any chance you could enlighten me? 

[Val Beechey]

Oh, come on Jon, are you serious ??   I'm sure you can remember either your Mam or Grand mam mending socks and trousers.
Just in case you are serious. Thingy would be placed under offending hole and you would 'weave' a matching yarn, backwards and forwards, joining it into the sides of the hole till  the hole was filled in.
Quit an art, if you were very good and had the correct yarn it would be almost invisible when finished.

Val

[Jon1987]

Lol honestly Val, I had no idea