It’s a key. But, this was particularly interesting to me as it’s the key to the fortress in Erzurum and we had visited this castle when we were in Turkey the previous week. And that’s something that has been a real revelation to me on this trip, it’s opened up a whole new history to me of a region that I didn’t know much about.
The key dates to 1829 and so was likely pinched by the Russians when they invaded the city in that year, unless this is perhaps the new key that had to be made because the old one went missing. When the Russians took the castle, it was the first time in over 500 years that Christian soldiers had occupied it, although the Treaty of Adrianople a few months later gave the city back to the Ottoman Empire.