Whetstones – abrasive stones for sharpening or honing the edges of metal tools – are among the most common archaeological finds from early medieval Europe. This book proposes that they have been wrongly identified in the archaeological record. The author’s chemical microanalysis via scanning electron microscope of hundreds of ‘whetstones’ in museum collections across Europe and beyond has revealed that such items are, in fact, routinely covered in non-ferrous metal streaks: principally lead, as well as copper, tin, zinc, silver and gold. The analysed artefacts are better interpreted as touchstones: fine-grained stone tools used for testing the composition of metals.

Although the author has published case studies of ‘whetstone’ collections in several earlier articles, this book presents the most extensive analytical results to date: fifty-one ‘whetstones’ from burials at the Viking-Age town of Birka, Sweden (twenty-nine per cent of the total from burials), all with signs of metal testing. This material is contextualised by a wide-ranging survey of evidence from, among other periods and places, Mesopotamia, Bronze Age Europe, Scythian contexts and several early-medieval European sites (much of which can also be found in Jezek Reference Jezek2013). The mix of material makes the point: the testing of metal, and the inclusion of touchstones in graves (of children and adults, men and women, the haves and have-nots) was a widespread, long-lived practice, woefully neglected in archaeological writing. This is a stunning finding – the identification of the Sutton Hoo Mound 1 ‘sceptre/ whetstone’, famously with little signs of wear, must now be in doubt. The impact of the findings is, however, lessened by the polemical nature of the text.

A central thesis of the book is that an increase in the frequency of use of touchstones (that is, concentrations at Birka and Hedeby) corresponds with the rise of the metal-weight (bullion) economic zone, which characterised Europe north and east of the River Elbe from the ninth to eleventh centuries (page 147). In this context, the reader may find two issues unresolved. First, while there can be no doubt that the analysed items are indeed touchstones, these come exclusively from burials. Yet c 12,000 ‘touchstone candidates’ are also known from Birka’s settlement area, known as the Black Earth (page 13). How representative are the analysed burial finds of the wider Birka material? According to the original publication, ‘whetstones’ from Birka burials are well preserved, formed of banded silt as well as slate, and have few traces of use. By contrast, ‘whetstones’ from the settlement are mainly slate, vary in form and preservation and show extensive wear from grinding and sharpening (Sundbergh and Arwidsson Reference Sundbergh, Arwidsson and Arwidsson1989, 108). It seems unlikely the settlement material can be re-identified, en masse, as touchstones. A fuller and more transparent discussion of the differences between the burial and settlement data is needed.

Second, touchstones are interpreted as essential tools for assessing the value of precious metal, principally silver, and thus can be considered alongside testing techniques such as ‘nicking’ or ‘pecking’. For Birka, this seems a sound conclusion. Silver streaks, with chemical compositions consistent with the alloys of Viking Age silver coins and bullion, occur on sixty-five per cent of the analysed touchstones at Birka; gold on thirty-three per cent. Yet Hedeby provides an interesting contrast. Here, only two of eighteen analysed stones showed traces of silver, and none show traces of gold (see Jezek and Holub Reference Jezek and Holub2014). Moreover, ‘the most common metal found on early medieval touchstones from the north-east part of Europe’ is not silver or gold, but lead. Lead appears on eighty per cent of analysed stones at Birka and eleven of eighteen specimens at Hedeby. In the largely non-silver economic zone of Iceland, ‘touchstone candidates’ are prominent, occurring in one tenth of burials (page 73). One wonders what metals appear on these stones. The reasons for the overall prominence of lead are largely unexplored, the author simply noting the metal’s importance for ‘making jewellery and working with non-ferrous metals in general, or for trade with raw materials’ (page 148). Do the lead streaks provide a control for assessing the streaks of silver? Is lead being traded as a form of base-metal currency? Unn Pedersen’s recent work has demonstrated the importance of lead in both manufacturing and as a traded raw material at Viking Age Kaupang (Pedersen Reference Pedersen2016). The results of Jezek’s work point in the same direction, but how this relates to the silver economy (if at all) remains unclear. Nonetheless, there can be no doubt that ‘whetstone’ inclusions in graves will need to be reassessed. Jezek has overhauled understanding of one of the most common burial goods in early medieval Europe.