This paper deals with an object donated by a group of members of the public to the Royal Armoury in Stockholm, Sweden. The donators claimed to own a horse bit that had been used by King Gustav II Adolf's mount in the battle of Lützen, where the King was killed. The bit was a gift to the donators' ancestor, the farmer and politician Petter Jönsson, from the King of Sweden, Oscar I, in the 1850's. In this paper, the donated bit is examined and found unlikely to be the bit used at Lützen. The examination also revealed that the bit now worn by the horse in its display is a prop, included in the group of objects in the 19th century, and that the original bit probably was lost in a fire in 1648.

Uppsala University Library owns eight volumes of manuscripts attributed to the academy equerry Johan Leven Ekelund (c.1701?1775). In this thesis, I apply methods from the field of material culture studies in order to establish which of the volumes that formed the donation from Leven to the library mentioned in his will. By mapping certain markers such as places, names and dates I am able to identify to some extent where Leven gained his practical skills and which writers influenced him. By analysing the texts, I draw the conclusion that the manuscripts can be divided into groups aimed for different audiences.