Cloth Seal, Colchester Dutch Community Seal, Say, 1571 onward

Cloth Seal, Colchester Dutch Community Seal, Say, 1571 onward, Image by Derfel, Found by Peter Olivant.
Found on the Thames Foreshore, ?mm.
Griffin fighting a serpent // DVY(TS) / COLC(ESTER) / SAEY ... / DRA(ET) ...

See no 25, p.29-30 and Fig.12, p.163, Geoff Egan (1994) Lead cloth seals and related items in the British Museum for a similar seal and reference to variants, "The legend (Dutch Colchester say 2300 draet seems to indicate first generation immigrants with its use of the Dutch word for thread (draet). The seal probably dates, therefore, from the last quarter of the sixteenth century. The precise significance of the specification 2300, which probably refers to the number of warp threads, remains obscure."

This is the only known example of this type of seal to show the griffin with an obvious serpent. It is not known why the Dutch immigrants chose the griffin as a common emblem on their seals, perhaps this apparent battle scene depicts some religious parable favoured by them.