Kosher Food Lead Seal, Plumba

Kosher Food Lead Seal, Plumba, Image & Found by Plodite.
Weighs 5.18g Length of 26.7mm Width of 9.7mm found in Offham Kent.

Kosher food seals with Hebrew letters on.
See Geoff Egan, No.356 Fig.47, 'Lead cloth seals and related items in the B.M. (B.M. Occasional Paper 93)'

From Rufus:- It's a 'plumba', a Kosher seal clamped to meat or poultry deemed fit for consumption after passing certain stringent tests. The characters are Hebrew. I have a couple myself, found on a field that must have seen the ritualised slaughter of animals for the London Jewish meat market in the 18th century. Interesting find.

Some more info - look down the page for 'Packaging'

See BM examples

An excellent article entitled 'Those Jewish Plumbas: All is Revealed!' can be found on page 1 of the March/April issue, No.82 of Leaden Tokens Telegraph by David Powell.

More seals in the British Museum, the first showing how the this design of seal was attached to the product with a loop of metal.