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Description: | Unlooped copper-alloy palstave, of Rowlands (1976) Class 1 Group 3, with decoration of a relatively shallow-relief shield pattern below the stop ridge. The casting seams, although partially tidied, remain prominent. The blade edge is very convex, with recurved blade ends suggestive of extensive use wear and resharpening; a resharpening bevel is visible on one face and is probably present on the other. The tip of one end of the blade is missing and the break is patinated. The blade has a severe irregular jagged crack across it about 20 mm above the blade edge. A small part is missing and the blade edge is twisted and nearly torn away. The crack edges are unworn, but patinated. There is no evidence of a scrape across the palstave and it may be that something (probably agricultural machinery, but some years ago) hit just the tip of the blade when the palstave was firmly fixed in the soil, removing the tip and causing the blade edge to twist and crack. Alternatively it is just possible that the palstave was broken in antiquity; the soil is sandy and it is in some ways difficult to see how the palstave could have been held in the soil so firmly that the actual metal was torn. Both these broken edges and the rest of the palstave are patinated a medium brown/green with small patches of paler green corrosion products. A small part of one flange has also broken away and here there is no patina, but a bright coppery metal colour. There are numerous other small areas of bronze colour, and recent dark scrapes show as a result of recent minor damage probably due to agricultural activity. The measurements of the palstave in its present condition are: length 149 mm, width of blade 61 mm, maximum thickness 26 mm. Middle Bronze Age.
Original Image | Publisher: | http://finds.org.uk | Source: | Portable Antiquities | Identifier: | http://finds.org.uk/database/artefacts/r... | Go to resource |
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