Raine Borg has an amazing web site about locks and keys through history. And it so happens that he's made reconstruction drawings of how keys identical to the one me and Per Vikstrand found in Torstuna recently were used. It's not a padlock key: it's most likely for a lock mounted permanently inside the lid of a chest or a door.
Lena Thunmark-Nylén's Die Wikingerzeit Gotlands informs me that the key type dates from the 11th and 12th centuries. Thus, alas, a bit too late to tell us much about pagan activities in the Field of Thor.
Thanks to Raine for permission to reproduce his drawings and to Tobias B. for tipping me off.
[More blog entries about archaeology, Sweden, medieval, middleages, locks; arkeologi, lås, medeltiden.]
More like this
Not really. But it is World Suicide Prevention Day. And, one way YOU can help prevent suicides is by keeping your gun locked up, separate from the ammo, and keeping the ammo locked up as well.
Why?
Here’s why:
About the furthest you can row on the Cam (unless you go over Baits Bite to Bottisham) is Baits Bite lock to Jesus Lock; and that seems to have become our regular monday evening practice. Warmup, spin, down to Jesus Lock, steady state to Baits Bite, then a piece back.
There are a bunch of physics stories that I'd sort of like to write about, but don't have time for, and politics is oscillating between "darkly hilarious" and "indescribably depressing," so that's best left alone. So, here's some cute kid pictures instead.
I don't quite get it: the key is supposed to pull back the bit of (bifurcated?) spring steel so that it's possible to slide the bolt out? But the slot that the key fits into doesn't seem to the key to go anywhere near the spring...
Nonsense! It's a kind of heretical Ankh. Turn it so the loop is on top and hang it vertically and it's a representation of the head and torso of a bodybuilder flexing her arms. Clearly it was an amulet owned by someone who was devoted to the goddess of tough love.
(if you believe this I got a bridge in Brooklyn I'm trying to unload real cheap...).
Michael, the keyhole is actually T-shaped, though the central pillar of the T is obscured by the bolt-and-spring.
Hallo Raine,
ich hoffe du bist der Raine aus Jönköping/Taberg.
vielleicht erinnerst du dich an Bärbelchen aus Deutschland.
Wie geht es dir?
Melde dich doch mal wenn du Zeit und Lust hast.
Viele liebe grüÃe aus Friedberg
Bärbelchen