File:Medieval cast lead alloy, or lead, weight or spindle whorl, biconical (FindID 559771).jpg

English: Medieval cast lead alloy, or lead, weight, biconical with a different decorative pattern on each face. The weight has a circular perforation through the centre. It has a maximum external diameter of 31mm, and the central perforation has a maximum diameter of 9mm. The weight appears to have seen very little use as there are few signs of wear. One side of the weight is decorated with raised, almost random, intersecting lines that look like a series of 'A's running around the central hole. The other side has two concentric bands of closely packed, sloped radiating lines, and there ad undecorated band around the central hole. In the "Finds Recording Guide", Geake (2001, p66) points out that: "The function of lead weights would have varied, from spindle-whorls to fishing weights to trade weights." She adds that spindle whorls should ideally be circular and must have a central perforation (ibid.). It is possible, therefore, that this lead weight is a spindle whorl. At the Austin Friary in Leicester (see Mellor and Pearce, 1981), a decorated whorl was found, still on its spindle, in a 13th to 15th century context. However, Geake (ibid.) states: "Dating of lead whorls is difficult. The drop spindle with which they were used continued in use until the end of the Medieval period in London and Winchester (Egan, 1998, "The Medieval Household: Daily Living c1150 - c1450", 255-261; and Biddle, 1990, "Object and Economy in Medieval Winchester"), and for perhaps a century longer in Norfolk (Margeson, 1993, "Norwich Households: Medieval and Post Medieval finds from Norwich Survey Excavations 1971 - 78",184-5)." She adds that, in Cottam in East Yorkshire, detectorists found decorated whorls in ploughsoil over the site of Roman buildings (Geake, ibid.). Without further context, is it not possible to closely date this lead weight. It could date to anytime between c1000 and c1600 AD.

The diameter varies from 29 to 31mm, and the weight is 29.93g.