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Description: | An iron claw hammer of unknown date. The centre of the hammer head is square in section. At one end is a circular sectioned hammering head, and at the other end, the head tapers and curves downwards, forking into two pointed claws. There is a small slot in the underside of the head, presumably where the handle attached. The slot is only 17.25mm long, 4.19mm wide at the widest point and 6.5mm deep. This means the socket cannot have been for a wooden handle. There is a depression in the centre of the top face of the hammer, but this is not directly in line with the slot on the base. It is presumed that the hammer had a metal handle, or at least, a metal connector between the head and the handle. The metal is rusty but stable and not particularly flaky.Iron tools are very difficult to date as such functional objects did not vary much in design. Ward Perkins (1940) notes that Medieval hammers "often seem to have been identical in form with those in use at the present day" (page 126, Medieval Catalogue). A Roman hammer is illustrated in Manning (1979), number 52, but it is not clawed. It has a narrow slot or eye for the handle, but it is larger than the slot on this example and extends through the whole thickness of the head. Clawed hammers recorded on the database tend to be assigned a Post Medieval date. They often have thinner, and more widely splayed claws and rectangular sockets through the head. Some also have an integral projecting socket descending from the head. Compare LON-66E586 and LON-B0BD16 for example. These parallels perhaps suggest that this hammer is likely to be of relatively modern date, but as it is from a known Roman site, it is recorded on the database for reference.
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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