Iron steelyard with lead weights
Roman, mid 1st-4th century AD
Found during excavations by Winchester Museums Service Archaeology Section at Victoria Road, Winchester in the mid- to late 1970s
As iron often survives burial in the ground poorly, the steelyard (statera) is incomplete, but a part of the arm is present. The larger of the weights is 7.6 Roman ounces (unciae), but the weight of the suspension chain, again only partly surviving, would probably have rounded it up to nine ounces, or three-quarters of a Roman pound (libra). Likewise, the smaller weight, at 2.95 ounces probably represents a quarter of a pound.
Steelyards were slightly more sophisticated than balances, in that the arm had a scale (now corroded away) along which the weight was slid until the beam was level, and counterbalanced the commodity being weighed. However, the accuracy in the Roman period of the measurements obtained has been questioned.
