CHISEL

The item is possibly a copper-alloy Bronze Age (c. 1500 - 1150BC) small chisel or awl. The blade is square in cross section and tapers to a flat edge. One side of the blade tapers slightly more, making the edge on one side thinner and forming a slight concavity on this side.
At the widest end of the blade there is an integral stop ridge which is semi-circular in plan and is partially broken. It would have been fully circular originally. It emerges perpendicular to the blade and tang, and is about 1.6mm thick. The blade protrudes from the centre of the face of this stop ridge on one face, and the tang protrudes directly opposite from the centre of the stop ridge on the other face.

The tang is square in cross-section and like the blade, tapers in thickness. The tang, however, ends in a blunt edge, and there is possibly some of the tang end missing.

The object is almost identical to another recorded on the database (WAW-EF4C84) which is dated to the Middle Bronze Age. Though this example is significantly smaller, and also shows evidence of potential gilding and/or decoration on one face of the tang. It is possible that this was caused by insertion into or contact with another item which was decorated in this way, though it is not certain. If it is a chisel or awl, it was almost certainly used for small-scale metal-working.

Dimensions: weight: 8.14g, length: 65.6mm, length of blade: 38.8mm, length of tang: 25.8mm, thickness of blade: 6.1mm, thickness of tang: 5.8mm, diameter of stop ridge: 13.7mm