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Description: | Fragment of a cast copper alloy blade from a socketed axehead that is sub-square in plan, triangular in profile and rectangular in section. The blade is narrow with straight sides with no suggestion of flanging and the cutting edge is rounded and blunt, though severely affected by corrosive pitting. The broken end of the blade still has the end of the socket which would have expanded within the axehead as the blade developed into the body and the collar at the opposite terminal. The socket is 20 mm long, 5 mm wide and 13 mm deep on the side that is intact. The socket, when complete, would have held the wooden haft or handle of the axe. The original surface has partly corroded away and there are patches of light green bronze disease at the broken edges. The narrow straight sides of the blade suggest that it is part of an Armorican socketed axe, also refered to as 'Breton axes', a type which are usually non-functional and may have been 'ingot-axes' at least in north west France. Outside north west France they are widespread but sparse. They date from the end of the Bronze Age, the Llyn Fawr phase, and into the Early Iron Age, the Hallstatt C phase (c.800-700 BC).Pearce (1983) illustrates similar Amorican socketed axes from Newlyn, Carn Brea and Penquite, in Cornwall, on pages 421 & 424-5, plates 14 & 17, nos.115, 129c & 134.
Original Image | Publisher: | http://finds.org.uk | Source: | Portable Antiquities | Identifier: | https://finds.org.uk/database/artefacts/ | Go to resource |
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