4/3/19 Report - Lead Seal Finds. 1715 Fleet (?) Wax Seal Find. Info on Sounding Weights. Cleaning Lead Artifacts.

Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of treasurebeachesreport.blogspot.com.

The Nathan-Melech/Eved Hamelech seal found in the City of David.
(Photo Credit: Eliyahu Yanai, City of David)

Archaeologists in Israel have discovered a rare clay seal mark and a 2,600-year-old stone stamp bearing Biblical names amid the ruins of a building destroyed by the ancient Babylonians...

The tiny 1 cm seal stamp has been dated to sometime from the middle of the seventh century to the start of the sixth century B.C. Deciphered by Dr. Anat Mendel-Geberovich of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Center for the Study of Ancient Jerusalem, the stamp features the words: “(Belonging) to Nathan-Melech, Servant of the King.” In the second book of Kings 23:11 “Nathan-Melech” is described as an official in the court of King Josiah. The seal is described as the first archaeological evidence of the Biblical name...

Here is the link for more about that.

https://www.foxnews.com/science/rare-ancient-treasures-bearing-biblical-names-discovered-in-jerusalems-city-of-david

One of my favorite Treasure Coast finds is a wax seal.  I'm not talking about the seal used to impress a mark in wax, but the actual stamped wax itself.

I found it at the water's edge at Turtle Trail.

The reason I like it so much is the improbability of something as fragile as a small slab of wax surviving hundreds of years on a beach or in the surf.

Unfortunately the design is not clear because of wear and sand impressed into the wax.

Here it is.

It isn't easy to see the design, but there is a bird that looks like an eagle.  On the left photo, the wing is outlined in red.  On the right photo, the head, body and thighs are outlined lightly in red - perhaps too lightly.

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Yesterday I showed Terry's lead sounding weight find.  Lead usually doesn't need much cleaning, however if you want to see the surface, there are some good methods.

The TAMU conservation lab provides detailed instructions for cleaning lead.  Looking at Terry's sounding weight, I don't know how much I'd do to it, but if I wanted to clean it, I'd first look at what could be mechanically removed.  I prefer applying pressure to encrustation instead of strinking it.  A slow increasing pressure will often cause encrustation to crack so it can easily be removed.  Then I might test a little acid and/or electrolysis.

Here is a bit of what the TAMU conservation manual says.

CHEMICAL TREATMENT OF LEAD Because of the ease of treatment and the availability of the chemicals, the most widely used conservation treatment for lead from any archaeological environment is the acid treatment described by Caley (1955). The lead is immersed in 10 percent hydrochloric acid, which will remove any adhering marine encrustation, along with lead carbonates, lead monoxide, lead sulfide, calcium carbonate, and ferric oxide. This treatment is good for lightly corroded specimens, and it gives lead surfaces a pleasing appearance. The surface detail that is preserved by this treatment varies with the degree of corrosion when recovered. For more diagnostic lead artifacts, Caley's method has been superseded by electrolytic reduction, which has the ability to convert mineral products back to a metallic state. For the general cleaning of lead without a lot of hands-on labor, however, Caley's method remains an acceptable and much-used technique, provided that the object is thoroughly rinsed after treatment in order to remove all remaining hydrochloric acid residue...


ELECTROLYTIC REDUCTION CLEANING The ability to control the speed of the electrolytic reaction through current controls makes electrolytic reduction especially useful for lead coins and medals or, indeed, any specimen where surface detail is important or reduction and/or consolidation of the corrosive layers is the objective...  Normal Reduction Lead artifacts with substantial metal remaining can be cleaned by the normal electrolytic reduction process using 5 percent sodium hydroxide, anodes of mild steel or stainless steel, and a current density of 2-5 amps/dm2. Very satisfactory results are achieved by this technique...

With either acid or electrolysis, go very slow and closely monitor the process.

I've discussed and illustrated .electrolysis before

Here is the link to the manual,

http://nautarch.tamu.edu/CRL/conservationmanual/ConservationManual.pdf

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Here is a description of how a sounding weight was used.

Taking soundings, or casts of the lead, is done when the vessel has headway on, the leadsman casting the lead forward and getting the depth as the vessel passes over the lead, resting on the bottom. The method of procedure is as follows:

The leadsman grasps the leadline at the toggle and swings the lead back and forth, parallel with the side of the ship, the leadsman being in a projecting lead stand, or in the chains in a sailing vessel, the lead is sent over head for two full turns and released at the bottom of the swing flying forward at a tangent, and almost parallel with the surface of the water. The motion of the swinging lead is opposite to that of a wheel turning with the motion of the ship. Assuming a right hand throw, from the starboard side, the left hand of the leadsman holds the coils of the line, freely forward, so it can run out without hindrance and without kinks. As the line flows out and the lead reaches the bottom, the leadsman grasps the running line with his right hand and pulls it rapidly plunging it up and down to feel the bottom. Feeling bottom, he plumbs the line up and down as the ship passes by the lead. He bends over and notes the mark above the water. If a mark is directly at the water, he calls out that mark, as "by the Mark five". If slightly under water "Mark underwater, five." If the five is three feet up, ""and a half four", if the five is six feet up," by the deep four." And so on , calling the marks and deeps or the spaces in between. If the mark is seven, for instance, is a quarter fathom out of the water (1.5 ft.) the leadsman would call, "and a quarter less seven." Before the next cast the leadsman will look at the arming and report the state of the bottom and clean the arming for the next cast. This gives you the general idea. The leadsman sings out the marks and deeps. He never uses "sir" as some are apt to do. The soundings should be called out sharp and clear. Leadsmen should practice casting the lead from both starboard and port lead stands...

For more interesting facts, check out this site.

http://www.navyandmarine.org/ondeck/1800soundinglead.htm

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Looks like I won't be able to get out for a few days.  It has been hard sitting out some of these days.  I left a spot half-done  that I badly wanted to finish.

If anyone has beach reports and photos,  I'd like to post them.

Looks like tomorrow the surf will decrease a bit from around three to five feet down a foot or so.

I've received a some thoughts on the gold mystery find that I posted the yesterday.  Still looking for more.  I expect to address that tomorrow.   Thanks to all contributors.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net