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Description: | Fragment of Late Iron Age welded Iron sword. The fragment represents the top part of the blade and the sword tang. The pommel, guard and grip are entirely missing so it is impossible to say what form these took beyond the basic make-up of the sword grip. However the hilt edge (where the tang extends from the top of the blade) is straight which means that the sword is probably of La Tène III type , Stead type IV(See Stead, 2006, British Iron Age swords and scabbards, The British Museum Press, page 9 and figure 3).The fragment is in very poor condition, with the original surface and double cutting edges entirely missing. It now has a seemingly flat, rectangular section and no signs of tapering. There is also a build up of corrosion, noticeably to one side which obscures detail. However Stead's typology informs us that the blade would not have had a median ridge and that it would not have had the pronounced taper evident in earlier swords. It would have terminated in a short point. The exposed surface of the blade is shearing off in small 'plates', which reveals how the sword was constructed. It was formed by a technique called edge-to-edge layering, where the blade was formed from individual bands of iron laid horizontally, much like a sandwich (up to as many as 25). The tang is sub square in section and ends in a long blunt point.The fragment is 220.5mm long, of which 90.5mm is the tang. It is 49.74mm wide across the blade and 9.74mm wide across the tang. The blade has a surviving thickness of 8.84mm and the tang 9.66mm. The fragment weighs 207.96g. It is orangey brown in colour due to the rust and corrosion it has suffered.La Tène III swords date from c.125BC-AD 43.
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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