by Karin Sczech
Philippe Blanchard, a colleague who works on medieval Jewish cemeteries in France, contacted me with a question of identification. From a grave in the cemetery of Châteauroux comes a pendant, which can be seen here how it was found.
Unfortunately, it is an iron object that has not yet been restored.
The X-ray image suggests an eyelet at the upper, wider end. The drawing was made after the X-ray.
Perhaps someone has an idea?
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Maria Stürzebecher (August 17, 2026). Crowd-SOURCE-ing Repost: Finding from the Jewish cemetery of Châteauroux. medievalJewishStudiesNow! Retrieved September 9, 2026 from https://doi.org/10.58079/rhk3
Is it possible that the bob was lost by someone marking out the cemetary/graves, to begin with?
Which would make it a very interesting object: A mason buried with his tool! I am waiting to see the x-ray and of course the restored object
The object seems to be a plumb bob, which was versatile and certainly also used for measurement purposes in Jewish context, among other things as a component of a mason´s level.