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Description: | Copper alloy Spearhead. Small cast socketed spearhead with a rounded end to its trapezoidal blade, of length 35.2mm and of thin lentoid section, which has blunt cutting edges of length 32mm. The base of the blade has an abrupt inswing, forming a slightly oblique angle with the cutting edges, though its angles are rounded like the tip. The narrow tapering socket appears to have been solid where it meets the blade, and its hollow extent was measured as only 20mm in length from its mouth, albeit without aggressive investigation. The socket, of total length 30mm, tapers from a maximum external diameter of 9.3mm at its mouth to 5.9mm where it meets the blade. The thickness of the wall of the socket is 2mm, so this could accommodate a shaft of only c.5mm diameter. The mouth of the socket is chipped on one side. The blade is now bent slightly out of alignment with the socket.The finder identifies this object as an arrowhead, though metal arrowheads of the Bronze Age have always been scarce. Evans (1881, pages 317-318) was aware of two Irish points which might have tipped a dart or javelin, and could cite a further five possible examples from the rest of the United Kingdom. None appear in Davey's 1970 survey of Bronze Age metalwork from Lincolnshire. The points and edges of this object are uniformly rounded, and all seem to have less potential to cut or pierce than the metal at the mouth of the socket. This suggests that the blunted blade is a deliberately formed feature, as both blade and socket would have been equally exposed to post-depositional wear or abrasion. The weight also exceeds that of arrowheads found practical by experimental researchers and re-enactors investigating the properties of arrowheads from the Mediterranean and the Near East.The rarity of this object class commends this as a find of note.Suggested date: Late Bronze Age, 1000-800 BC.Length: 69.2mm, Width: 19.2mm, Diameter (mouth of socket): c.9mm, Thickness (base of blade): 4.8mm, Weight: 19.61gms.
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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