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Eye Doctor's Branding Tool
This is a domino-sized piece of stone is engraved with the words “Julius Alexander’s salve for irritations”. The interesting thing is that the words are in reverse, so the stone was clearly meant for printing. It is one of only 60 such stamps world-wide.
It seems that cosmetic branding was important to the Romans as it is to us today. This stamp ensured that people knew they were getting ‘ the real McCoy ‘ and not some forgery.
It was found on the Mount by the Dickinsons - a farmer and his nephew who worked land on which the Mount School now stands. They worked very closely with local archaeologist Peter Wenham in collecting and plotting Roman objects from their land.
Their collection of artefacts now forms part of the archaeological collections at the Yorkshire Museum.