---

Mysterious Items

What do you think this item may have been? The following two images are the front and back of a flat oval shaped piece that is 1.5cm wide. This was found in pit #3. We thought this was iron but a metal detector shows it as being brass, copper, or silver. Natalie Adams Pope and Odess Brinkman both thought, independently, that it was part of a locking/latching mechanism like that which would hold down the top of a simple jewelry box. The back of the item gives a better look at the metal and what appears to be a piece of glazed material on the other side of one of the small locking pegs. Could the spot on the back side be where the item was attached (glued) to another surface?