Evidence for workshop practices at the Tudor mint in the Tower of London

• Autores: Justine Bayley, Harriet White
• Localización: The Renaissance Workshop / David Saunders (ed. lit.), Marika Spring (ed. lit.), Andrew Meek (ed. lit.), 2013, ISBN 978-1-904982-93-7, págs. 138-143
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • The mid-sixteenth century was a period of great activity at the mint in the Tower of London as there was a major re-coinage in the aftermath of Henry VIII's Great Debasement of 1545-1551. Salvage recording at Legge's Mount in the Tower of London in 1976 uncovered two brick-built furnaces and retrieved considerable quantities of metalworking debris. The scientific investigation of these finds has identified a range of metallurgical processes carried out at the mint, although no coins or dies were found. The processes that have been identified include the melting of base and precious metals, the assaying of silver in bone ash cupels and the parting of gold from silver by two different processes. There is a variety of relevant English documentary records from the sixteenth century, some of which relate to the location of the mint within the Tower and others that show that some of the ceramic vessels used there were made in the Tower, while others were probably brought in from outside.