Kosher Food Lead Seal

Kosher Food Lead Seal, Image by Karen Ellis-Andrews, Found by Martyn Ellis, Held by Jim Crombie.
Found Thames Foreshore, Bankside, 17mm.

שר // unclear

Kosher seal of the two-disc rivet type (usually attached to cloth). See Kosher certification agency, הכשר‎, "seal of approval".

See Geoff Egan, No.356 Fig.47, 'Lead cloth seals and related items in the B.M. (B.M. Occasional Paper 93)', "(?)Late seventeenth- / eighteenth-century. The Hebrew legend reads [בשר] kosher // Meyer / Shur. Seals like these, the only ones yet identified of the two-disc, riveted type definitely for items other than cloth, were used by the Jewish community on meat from animals slaughtered according to religious laws. ... Several examples, including at least one still attached to the leg bones of a chicken have been excavated in the Jewish quarter of Amsterdam - see fig 47 (Baart et al. 1977, 123-4 nos.89-91, and idem 1983, 88-9 fig,12; these are dated to the seventeenth century, no,90 being attributed to the first half) Sephardic Jews were prominent in London's trade in dyestuffs from the late seventeenth century (David Mitchell pers. comm.); their connection with textile finishing provides possible circumstances for devising this alternative use of seals of the present form."

See also, Nieuwkoop: loden, Metaaldetector vondsten © 2016, Jan van Oostveen for a detailed treatise on kosher seals found in the Western Netherlands, South Holland.

See also BSG.OS.00138 for a similar example of a two-disc, rivet seal type.