This stamp, like some others, has a rude figure of a plant engraved along with the inscription. The trunk of the plant is given at the commencement of the third line by Mr. Hartshorne as an I—thus unnecessarily confusing the reading of the legend.
SECTION XI.
STAMP NO. X.—FOUND AT KENCHESTER.
In the Journal of the British Archæological Association for 1849, Mr. Roach Smith has described a medicine-stamp found at Kenchester, in Herefordshire, and communicated to him by Mr. Johnson. I myself am indebted to the kindness of Mr. Johnson for both a model and drawings of this medicine-stamp, which is quadrilateral, and engraved on its four sides. It has, besides, the word SENIOR inscribed on one of its flat surfaces; and the four first letters of the same word are repeated on the opposite surface. I shall afterwards have occasion to re-advert to this curious point.
Mr. Smith has published a sketch of the stamp; but the more correct drawings of it in Plate III., No. X., have been kindly furnished to me by Mr. Johnson. The six lowest figures in this plate represent, first, the two flat surfaces of the stone, with the retrograde inscriptions upon its four sides; and, secondly, these four inscriptions as they appear when impressed upon wax.
The inscriptions on the four sides of this stamp read as follows:—
1. F.VINDAC.ARIO
VISTIANICET
2. T.VINDACIAR
(i)OVISTINARD