File:NCL-7DD3F6, Roman lead sealing (FindID 107878).jpg

English: A military lead sealing of the ​ala Hispanorum Vettonum dating to the late second or third century AD. The sealing is rectangular in shape and in section. The obverse is struck with the legend 'AVET' ​'a(la) Vet(tonum)' ​and the reverse with the legend 'SLD' retrograde 'S(...) L(...) d(ecurio). The sealing is pierced horizontally with the piercing visible at each end of the sealing. Within the piercings is a white substance, presumably the remains of the textile chord. The sealing measures 19mm in length, 11mm in width and 6mm in thickness.

The ala is conventionally described as the obverse, but this sealing was made by pouring the metal into a matrix incised with the decurion's initials; the surface was then impressed with the ala sealing. A is open (unbarred) and separated from V by a medial point. E is ligatured to T. In cutting the decurion's initials retrograde, the mould-maker inadvertently inserted the medial points after the letters, so that they printed before them, not after. (Compare the reverse of 31.) Instead of three initials, the decurion (troop-commander) has only two, as also in RIB II.1, 2411.84 (Stanwix) and 88 (South Shields). Although conceivably he was not a Roman citizen, and this was his name and patronymic, it is more likely that, for want of space, only his nomen and cognomen were abbreviated; thus, explicitly, a decurion of the ala Vocontiorum in RIB II.1, 2411.90 (Leicester) is named as Fl(avius) Sim(ilis) d(ecurio) without praenomen.

This is the first sealing of the ala Hispanorum Vettonum, which is attested at Binchester (Vinovia), the next fort to the north from Piercebridge, by RIB 1028, 1035 and III, 3260; it was there in the late-second and third centuries, but its presence cannot be more closely dated. The three VNOV sealings (26-28) may also refer to Binchester.