MEDIEVAL VESSEL

1066

Incomplete miniature copper-alloy vessel with tall straight neck, handles, and bulbous body. The neck is cylindrical and is 15 mm diameter at the straight rim. One edge is torn away, together with one handle, but the other handle is a smoothly curving vertical D shape with the top springing from the rim. Inside the neck is a bubbly green concretion which narrows but does not block the mouth. The neck smoothly curves out to a bulbous body, and the base is missing (fresh breaks). Surviving height 40 mm, maximum diameter 29 mm. These flasks are not common, but two are known from Norfolk and two from London. They were clearly used for holding some kind of substance that would only have been needed in small quantities, and Geoff Egan has speculated that they may have been mercury flasks.Since this record was made, another similar object has been found in Surrey (SUR-FA2AB0). This vessel carries the inscription OLEVM CHRISM and therefore presumably contained holy oil.