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Date: |
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Description: | One blade from a set of copper-alloy shears. The blade is worn and measures 76mm in length and 21.5mm in width. Both edges curve gently to a point, the tip of which is now missing. The cutting edge is 0.5mm in thickness as opposed to the outer edge which is 2mm in thickness. There are two U-shaped parallel notches in the cutting edge which appear to be due to damage, perhaps agricultural, and have active pale green corrosion products surrounding them. Both faces of the blade are pitted and have active corrosion products occuring. The blade has a dark brown patina. A fragment of the handle shaft survives, this is rectangular in shape and measures 28mm in surviving length and 3.6mm in width, it is 2mm in thickness. Copper-alloy shears are unusual, shears are normally made of iron. Being a simple but efficient instrument the form of shears has changed little over time so they can be difficult to date, although copper-alloy examples are usually believed to be late medieval in date (London Museum 1975, 153-158). As the junction between the two arms is missing in this case and the remaining handle shaft incomplete, worn and distorted it is even more difficult to assign a date to them with any certainty. The small size of this example may suggest that they were used to cut hair or thread rather than for shearing sheep, as the larger iron examples were.
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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