Today I am handing back this rather unusual Middle Bronze Age (1400-1150 BC) socketed axehead, found in the Marlborough area by a RSPB warden checking birds. It was just lying on the surface of the field!

PAS record number: WILT-C4C954

Object type: Socketed axehead

Broadperiod: Bronze Age

County of discovery: Wiltshire

Stable url: http://www.finds.org.uk/database/artefacts/record/id/398522

At first, I felt sure that the narrow dimensions of the axehead suggested it was a chisel. But it was quite an unusual chisel if so, and I could find no parallel among my printed material or on the PAS database. A plea for help on the PAS FLO forum lead to Frank Basford (Isle of Wight FLO) suggesting I contact Bronze Age metalwork specialist Brendan O’Connor.

I asked Brendan if there was anything particularly interesting I could say about the chisel – and Brendan replied that yes indeed there was! For this object was not a chisel but an unusual Middle Bronze Age socketed axehead (socketed axeheads being more usually associated with the Late Bronze Age) of rather slender proportions. Besides an example being discovered in the enormous Salisbury hoard in the 1990s, a group of this type had been found in East Dorset (A Group of Middle Bronze Age Socketed Axes from East Dorset, Brendan O’Connor and Peter J. Woodward, PDNHAS 125, 2003, 144-6). Then shortly after this was published, Frank Basford recorded one from the Isle of Wight in a hoard of Taunton phase palstaves (Treasure Annual Report 2003, p. 197), which confirmed the Middle Bronze Age date and southern distribution (O’Connor pers.comm.) Brendan comments that perhaps Marlborough is a little far north of the area, but says it is of no matter – there seems to be an interesting southern distribution here! The Taunton phase dates to 1400-1150 BC.

The axehead is incomplete, missing part of one side (old damage). It measures 120.40x(max)26.14x(max)27.16mm and weighs 183.55g. The entire surface of the chisel is pitted and a small patch of original patina survives around the loop.

Hopefully more of this type of axehead might start to creep out of the woodwork – if you think you may have found an axehead like this it would be great to get it recorded! You can track down your local FLO at www.finds.org.uk/contacts