Cloth Seal, French, Nimes Silk / Serge Seal, Image & Found by Andreas Grubstad Paulsen.
Found in North Norway, ?mm.
Crocodile beneath a palm tree, COLNE(M) / NISMES // .I.E. / (M)AUSSELY / ET / COMP
A single disc cloth seal for Nimes silk or serge. Maussely & Company?
See No.346 Fig.46, Geoff Egan,'Lead cloth seals and related items in the B.M. (B.M.occ.papers 93)', "palm tree and crocodile, COL NE(M) to sides, NIMES below // fleur-de-lis, PIERRE LARNAC around ..... The abbreviation stands for Colonia Nemauensis, the Latin name for Nimes, and the main device is the city's arms (these refer to the foundation of the original Roman colonia at Nimes by army veterans from Egypt). ... a similar seal of an early eighteenth-century Nimes maker of silk stockins and cloth, David Baumer, was found in a wreck off eastern Mexico."
From Things to See in the Languedoc: Historic Cities: Nîmes "The city’s coat of arms shows a crocodile chained to a palm tree - the device dates back to Roman times and commemorates the defeat of Mark Anthony on the Nile by the Emperor Augustus. The connection is that Augustus rewarded his legionaries with grants of land in the Roman colony here. ...... In the Middle Ages wool and silk industries brought wealth to the city. It was here that a particularly adaptable type of serge material originated. Serge “De Nîmes”, hence denim, found its way to America in 1870."
