Tom Chivers
@thisisyogic
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Writer, publisher, producer | Author – London Clay @transworldbooks | PhD @QMULGeography @MOLarchaeology | Founder @PennedintheM | Thames mudlark | Dad of girls
Rotherhithe, South London
Joined March 2010
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London Clay: Journeys in the Deep City is now out in paperback! 📚
🌳 Urban woodlands
💦 Lost rivers
🏝 Mythical islands
🪨 Geological anomalies in the heart of London
Available
@waterstones
or wherever you get your books
👉
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This morning, mudlarking in blazing sunshine, I came across this beautiful old signet ring, decorated with crude lines and set with three faceted blue stones. All my instincts are saying Georgian, making it two or three hundred years old. What a find from the Thames foreshore!
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🌅 This might be the most beautiful Thames sunset I’ve witnessed. Photo doesn’t really do it justice. No filter.
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Due to personal circumstances I’ve not been on the foreshore much these past months, but today I stumbled across this incredible sherd of Samian ware. Is that a dancer or - dare I say it - a gladiator? This would have been tableware in a posh household in Roman London 🪔
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The very final minute of my very final visit of 2023 to the Thames foreshore this morning yielded this tiny treasure, a dream find of mine: a beautifully wonky, handmade bone die - perhaps Tudor or a little later 🎲
Thank you, O blessed river ✨
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The gentlest clean with a toothbrush, nothing else. She’s looking glorious in late summer sunlight.
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Over almost 4 years as a licensed Thames mudlark, I have assembled a large collection of buttons – from Victorian fly buttons stamped with the tailor’s name and address to medieval lead alloy decorated buttons.
Which is your favourite? A thread.🪡
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The mournful gaze of this sand sculpture as it’s washed away by the Thames..... ⏳
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Just up from a 20th-century dump on the Thames foreshore: a complete 1930s art deco Brylcreem bottle 💈
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Beautiful morning on the Thames foreshore to find this George III Penny dated 1807 🪙
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Look at this bad boy just lying there this morning! My very first complete clay pipe - bowl to mouthpiece - in two and a half years mudlarking!
Royal Antediluvian Order of Buffalos, 19th-century, straight out the Thames mud. Amazing condition.
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During a recent nightlark, my curiosity was piqued by a flash of green embedded in the sand of the Thames foreshore 🔦
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I only popped down to the foreshore for a quick stroll after lunch & managed to spot this prehistoric thumb-scraper!
This is officially my oldest mudlarking find: a flint tool knapped by hand by a Neolithic or Bronze Age Londoner.
Thanks to
@Rothersman
for confirming the ID.
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Could this be my first genuine fragment of chainmail armour, found this morning on the Thames foreshore?
The photo on the right shows Tudor chainmail recovered from the Mary Rose (sunk 1545) 🌹
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Before Twitter explodes I’d like to share some news.
I am starting a PhD
@QMGeography
in collab with
@MOLArchaeology
funded by
#AHRC
via
@CDPConnect
I am exploring the relationship between people, history, landscape & environment thru the lens of
#mudlarking
on the Thames! 🌊
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Today, during fieldwork on the Thames foreshore, I spotted this early 17th-century clay pipe bowl but completely failed to notice the beautiful stamped decoration on the heel: a Tudor rose 🥀
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So / here / she / is 😱 My non-fiction debut London Clay: Journeys in the Deep City is released in hardback on 9 September. Find out more / preorder ➡️ 🐧
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Mudlarking. I’m three and a half years in now. These are my best finds of 2023 🔍
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What were you doing last night at 8.40pm?
I was down here, in the gloom of the foreshore, encountering for the first time the mouth of the lost river Tyburn, the ‘teo bourne’ or boundary stream which still flows into the Thames from one of London’s historic sewers.
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Unbelievably low tide today. This is Cuckold’s Point, Rotherhithe at midday. Vast sandy beach, pools of standing water & gloopy mudflats reaching right out into the Thames. I was literally walking on the river bed. Extraordinary. (Click for panorama!)
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Charles I rose farthing (1636-44) up from the Thames foreshore. Mudlarking with an epic hangover today.
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It’s a lovely fragment of decorated ceramic stove tile - my first - and I think dates to the Tudor period, c. 1550-1600 🔥
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I’m sure many of my writer friends have had this experience before but this was my first time and I was SCREAMING inside!
That’s right: someone reading my book, London Clay, on the London Overground 😱😱😱😱
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I almost didn’t pick this up! What I thought was just a knackered lead token turns out to be my first ELIZABETHAN hammered coin! It’s a silver halfpenny with the cross and pellets on the obverse and a portcullis on the reverse 🏰
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@HLTCO
@J_Dyer_Official
That’s proper broadcasting. Word-perfect description of events as they happened, delivered with charisma but not ego.
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Martha (4) told a very small white lie at bedtime.
Daddy: Martha that is not true. What do we call something that is not true?
Martha: An idea.
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I’m over the bloody moon to have found my first hammered coin! 🪙
It’s a *beautiful* rose farthing dating to the reign of Charles I (1625-49)🌹 found by eye & a little gentle scraping on the Thames foreshore today…
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Obligatory book + strong coffee photography for the proofs of
#LondonClay
- this is a *draft cover* - final to be released soon - hardback coming 9th September! 😱
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This example is from
@britishmuseum
and is decorated with a Tudor rose, the royal arms of England and the initial ER. Elizabeth Regina.
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I met a handsome stranger down the river. Beautiful eyes, but he doesn’t say much.
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Mudlarking on a silent stretch of the Thames foreshore under the cover of darkness, something sparkly caught my eye: a complete Georgian shoe buckle, beautifully decorated and, apart from conception around the iron pin, in immaculate condition✨
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I’m not a man known for extravagant purchases but I couldn’t help but get my hands on this beautiful 1920s haberdashery cabinet for the storage of my “treasures” from mudlarking the Thames foreshore.
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Daughter no.2 arrived yesterday at 4.13pm in the pool at St Thomas’s Hospital, weighing 8 pounds 6 ounces 💦 She is named Evelyn Mary after my father’s grandmother 👶 Sarah (
@Dr_Dustagheer
) was heroic. All are happy & well 💕
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It is done. Submitted to my publisher.
#LondonClay
has been a blast to write but also very difficult - during lockdown and the birth of daughter no.2. I hugely appreciate the support I have received on Twitter. It’s got me through. Thank you. Now to await my editor’s comments! ✍️
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It’s actually happening! London Clay will he published by the mighty
@TransworldBooks
😱😱😱 Absolutely in bits here...
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Sterling silver (925) ring found on a freezing cold Thames foreshore 🥶 It was made in Greece and of no great age - perhaps 1970s? - but it’s silver and I love it! 🔍 💍
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I love how the rain falling on our duckweed-covered canal in
#Rotherhithe
looks like static on an old video tape
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Medieval buckle plate, copper alloy, 1250-1400.
What a survivor this is. I love the simple decoration of parallel dotted lines. It was once riveted to the leather belt or girdle of a Londoner some 600 years ago. An object from the age of Chaucer, Langland, the Peasants’ Revolt!
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Hardly slept a wink last night and still lying in bed adjusting to this. The messages of support are so generous. The end of an era!
NEWS
From January 2023, Penned in the Margins is going on an indefinite hiatus. We will cease to publish or produce new work.
Scroll for more details or read our full statement here:
🧵
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@kinggeoiii1
Cheers John. I think it’s bronze rather than gold, though I’m not 100% certain. Yes I’ll be reporting it to the Museum of London.
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Today I took these two beauties - and several boxes of other treasures from my 3 ½ years of Thames mudlarking - to
@MuseumofLondon
to be recorded ✍️
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I’m going through a bad patch with my mental & physical health right now. So if I am curt, vacant or absent altogether in my correspondence or in person, please forgive me. I’ll be back to normal, at some point, I hope 🙏
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💕 This beautiful sherd of Westerwald pottery, found in dense mud on the Thames foreshore, probably dates to the late 1600s and, well, I 💜 it, don’t you? 💕
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This week I got the keys to my new flat. Still in sunny Rotherhithe of course! A long-term home for me & my two beautiful girls 🔑 🏡
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This is the moment I discovered a BEAUTIFUL decorated
#Tudor
button on the Thames foreshore 🌊
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This evening I received a very special package from biscuit-maker extraordinaire
@EllaMcHawk
- she has made a set of biscuits based on my
#mudlarking
finds!
Thank you Ella! 🙏
This beautiful sherd of cobalt-blue Westerwald was eaten by
@Dr_Dustagheer
😋
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This modest potsherd, found on the Thames foreshore this morning, dates to the 10th-12th century AD.
It’s Saxo-Norman shell-tempered ware (thanks Richard Hemery for the ID) & I’ve got a piece of the rim.
Just imagine: its owner may have witnessed the Norman Conquest of 1066 ⚔️
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As yet unidentified. Could it be a tiny Roman minim?
If so it would be my first (definite) Roman coin after almost four years of searching the Thames foreshore 🪙
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🚨 Possible medieval or Tudor book clasp found on the Thames foreshore tonight! 📖 📖 📖
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I can’t quite believe I’m about to go through the page proofs of my first (non-poetry) book. It’s been a long journey to get this far. I’m filled with fear & excitement.
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Slack tide on the Thames, beautifully captured
THE RIVER’S MOST HYPNOTIC MOMENT. Stillness at slack tide. For 50 miles the Thames feels the pull of ocean. As far as Teddington or ‘Tide-end-town’. But here the water is like glass. No movement. A magical moment. Stasis. Is the space between February and March calm or menace?
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Quite the sunset down on my fieldwork site on the Thames foreshore at Rotherhithe 🌅
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Nerd alert 🚨
I’ve just realized that my local post box in Rotherhithe Street SE16 dates from the reign of George V - the current king’s great-grandfather - making it at least 86 years old. It was manufactured in Falkirk by McDowall Stevens & Co ✉️ 🇬🇧 🏴 👑
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We went for a walk by the Thames this morning. In one hour we saw not a single boat. Undisturbed by engines, the sediment has fallen to the riverbed and at the edges the water is unbelievably clear.
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Look how green the Thames foreshore at
#Rotherhithe
#SE16
was this morning. Incredible. I’ve lived here 6 years & never seen it like this. It’s usually a sandy-grey mud. Am I going mad or had anyone else noticed this?
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Sitting in my local with this - the paperback edition of my book. I was a voracious reader as a child but never imagined I’d have the little Penguin logo on something with my name on it.
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The Thames foreshore at dusk, looking east from Rotherhithe 🌙
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Yesterday on the very low tide I spotted this beautiful, Thames-gilded silver coin.
It’s a 1 sösling (sixpence) from the contested region of Schleswig-Holstein, and was minted in 1709 by B.H. in the town of Tönning, at the mouth of the river Eider 🪙 🇩🇪
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Read on if you’re a writer or poet or artist and do university gigs
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It’s 5am. I’ve been up all night, finishing the last-ish chapter of my 120k-word book, when I glance out the window and see a grey heron flying straight towards me from the river, then lifting its wings into the sky. The last line I wrote: “The heron scans the water and is gone.”
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I need to tell you about last night - thread 🧵
It was the most glorious evening on the Thames foreshore…
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21 seconds of the Thames at Rotherhithe looking lovely on this bright winter morning ☀️
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I recently moved to a new flat due to the end of my marriage.
Today, while looking for mini-beasts in the communal garden, my elder daughter Martha found a pound coin buried underneath an elm tree.
After cleaning, it came up clear. 1983: the year of my birth.
#NewBeginning
🍃
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Just popped in to see
@LondonMudlark
’s exhibition at Southwark Cathedral: so many extraordinary Thames finds, lovingly displayed 👍👍👍 FREE & on till 30 October
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🪙 Just up from the Thames foreshore: a uniface cross & pellet lead token in great condition. Late Medieval or Tudor.
I wonder who issued it - a local church or monastery perhaps - and how was it spent?
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I just sat in Costa Coffee with my agent, Sophie, & signed the contract for my book
#LondonClay
, coming out in 2021 from
@TransworldBooks
. This is it then, Chivers. Buckle up.
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@SuperWicksy
Thanks Jacqui! I’m looking forward to confirming the ID. But one of my mudlarking friends who specialises in jewellery is sure it’s at least 18th-century and proper bling!
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As a demonstration of just how fast the Thames foreshore is eroding, this mooring block was firmly embedded in the ground when I started mudlarking in 2020. It’s now been undercut by at least half a foot.
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Found on the Thames foreshore. Part of a four-disc cloth seal dating to the reign of the first Hanoverian king of Great Britain, George I (1714-27).
The seal shows a crown over a rose and thistle, representing the Union between England and Scotland 🏴 🏴
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Hand-painted ceramic furniture knob. Age unknown. Discovered embedded in the mud of the Thames foreshore.
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Winter sun breaks over the Thames at Rotherhithe. No filter required.
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Three Mills in January sunlight ☀️
At slack tide the River Lea was as calm as a millpond.
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👼 I found this exquisite little object on the Thames foreshore during fieldwork. I think it’s a medieval or early post-medieval strap-end, decorated with a winged angel blowing a trumpet.
If my dating is correct, it’s one of my best finds and will be reported to
@MuseumofLondon
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An early-morning birthday visit to the Thames foreshore produced this crude lead token with a single initial ‘W’, probably dating to the 17th or 18th century. It’s immensely pleasurable to hold.
I wonder who (or what) ‘W’ was; and whose hands it passed through in its use-life?
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I’d been hoping to stumble across one of these on the foreshore since learning about them from one of
@TideLineArt
’s videos. A clay pipe decorated with the longhorns of the Royal Antediluvian Order of Buffaloes (RAOB) - a fraternity dating back to 1822 & still running! 🦬
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‘The object is the thing that matters’
18 discarded objects - from a corroded penknife to a tiny hexagonal bead - found in a two-hour mudlark on the Thames foreshore at night 🌙
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I’m pretty lucky to be the publisher of this book of poems by literary demigod
@InuaEllams
(out 5th October)
DM me a grovelling note if you’d like an advance copy - of which there are not many left 😆
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🪙 Sifting the fine gravel and iron waste in the sunshine and up pops the handsome face of Charles II on this tin farthing, minted 1684/85.
👑 CAROLVS A CAROLO 👑
The hole in the middle is what remains of a small copper plug, designed to prevent forgeries.
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Worth crawling around a freezing foreshore this morning to find these four fabulous finds ❄️
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25 years today without this incredible woman, my mum 💗 may she rest in peace 💗
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Rejection is tough. I have felt it personally many times. But this...?
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The bad news: the coin is broken.
The good news, however: it’s a rare one. Dating to 1601-1604 it was minted under the reign of James VI of Scotland (later James I of England) & would have been worth 120 shillings or 6 pounds, enough to pay a skilled tradesmen for four months!
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Hurray! 🎉 My book, London Clay: Journeys in the Deep City, is the non-fiction bestseller of 2022 at Riverside Bookshop in London Bridge! 📚
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Before and after. A beautiful six-pointed star on this ? 17th-century button, found on the Thames foreshore today in late summer sunshine ☀️
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The Thames at low tide at Cuckold’s Point, Rotherhithe, not long after sunrise this morning ✨
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Exploring the Thames foreshore sometimes generates unusual perspective of the city above.
In this shot, the chimneys of Battersea Power Station - the largest brick structure in Europe - loom above the sand and mud of the river at low tide.
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This is what a super-low tide looks like on the River Thames, when the green-grey liquor draws back on centuries of rusting industrial waste, building rubble, ships’ timbers and, very occasionally, an everyday treasure from the past worth the taking.
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Crazy thing happened tonight.
Walking my eldest home thru Rotherhithe when a bloke stopped me in the street.
Directions, I thought.
“Tom Chivers?” he asked. “I’ve read your book!”
Funny thing is, it was dark but he recognized my voice as he’d listened to the audiobook!
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Up from the river after a long time searching the tideline: a Charles I farthing produced under license to Lord Maltravers 1634-1636. I think it’s a type 2, the mint mark being a bell 🔔
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I found a cannonball! 💣 💥
Shout out to
@Rothersman
who finds a lot of these on the river. Any idea how old it is, Alan?
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A stunning, stunning find. Imagine this being used in a medieval monastic scriptorium or perhaps in one of the workshops on Paternoster Row… ✍️
Finding a late medieval (c. 1400-1450) parchment pricker
#mudlarking
on the river Thames. Used for writing on a wax tablet or marking out letters when creating manuscripts. A bucket list find for me.
#mudlark
#medieval
#archaeology
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A medieval mystery solved? 💍
Almost exactly one year ago I found an old, squashed ring on the Thames foreshore. It has a beautiful blue glass setting. I have never been able to confirm its provenance or age, until now! 🧵
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