Flame-Caliper of the Ascendancy Engineer Corps (Iron Measuring Divider)

The Flame-Caliper represents a category of precision instrument that until the Verath Plateau excavations of 2021 was attested only through secondary references in Ascendancy administrative leather documents — specifically the so-called 'Legion Builder Rolls' (Harresh Collection, inv. HC-0042 through HC-0061), which itemize 'ferkum dividers' among the equipment issued to Engineer Corps decurions. The present piece is only the fourth physical exemplar recovered, and by far the best preserved, making it a benchmark artifact for the type. Dating relies on three convergent lines of evidence. First, metallurgical analysis (XRF, conducted by the Varanthi Institute laboratory, 2023) places the iron composition — notably its phosphorus and slag inclusion profile — within the mid-Ascendancy smelting tradition, consistent with foundry output from roughly -700 to -550. Second, the epigraphy of the incised inscription on the inner arm face places it firmly in the mid-period military scribal hand: the glyphs are the fully stabilized, 28-letter alphabetic Serathi script, derived from earlier Kethari logographic signs via acrophonic simplification, but showing none of the late-period letter-form compression associated with post -500 administrative documents. The angular, upright, well-separated letterforms are consistent with instruments and formal records rather than field correspondence. Third, the volcanic-stone composite at the pivot joint — a material that fell out of documented Ascendancy use after approximately -580, likely due to shifting quarry access in the mid-highland collapse period — provides a useful terminus ante quem. The decorative program is militarily orthodox and reveals much about how the Ascendancy encoded professional identity into functional objects. The cross-hatching on the outer arm faces directly references the fortification pattern that appears on Ascendancy siege maps, barracks wall reliefs, and officer seals — a visual vocabulary connoting constructed strength and permanence. The triangular-peaks band on the upper left arm is the mountain motif, the most pervasive Ascendancy landscape symbol, appearing across media from monumental steles to stamped leather ration pouches. Its presence on a precision tool is significant: it suggests the Engineer Corps claimed the mountain — the material they shaped, tunneled, and built upon — as a professional emblem distinct from the flame symbolism more broadly associated with religious and command hierarchy. The flame itself, embossed at the pivot, occupies the instrument's structural center, a placement that appears intentional given the technical complexity it required the maker to achieve on a functional joint surface. This positioning — sacred motif at the axis of measurement — may be interpreted as an invocation of divine precision, consistent with the Ascendancy theological residue documented in military contexts well into the mid-period, despite the formal dismantling of Kethari theocratic institutions after the collapse of c. -1100. Comparanda are sparse. The three previously known iron dividers (Mireth Museum of Antiquities inv. MMA-1987-004; Harresh Collection HC-0089; and the fragmentary Verath Plateau piece, VP-2021-17, lacking both points and the pivot disc) share the basic hinged-arm morphology but lack the decorative elaboration of the present piece, suggesting this example was produced for a senior Engineer Corps officer — likely a decurion or above — rather than as standard issue equipment. The inscription, currently under full analysis, will be critical to confirming rank attribution. Preliminary reading of the first line suggests a Corps unit designation; the second and third lines may encode a standard cubit value and a maker's mark, a pattern seen on two of the Harresh leather rolls. The char-black leather grip retention, though fragmentary, is an important parallel to the preserved grip wrappings on Ascendancy officer swords in the Verath collection, confirming that the same dyeing and stamping traditions applied across the full range of professional military equipment, not solely weapons. This cross-category consistency reinforces the argument that Ascendancy material culture treated tools of construction and tools of war as morally and professionally equivalent — an ideological position consistent with what is known of their administrative doctrine, in which the Engineer Corps held equivalent institutional rank to front-line legion commands.