SPEARHEAD

Late Roman Copper alloy 'votive' spearhead, 82mm long, 26mm wide and 2mm thick with a weight of 28.23grams. The object has a leaf shaped flat blade, 45mm long, which is damaged and missing its tip (it is 17mm wide at this point). The shaft, which is triangular in form and circular in cross section, emerges from the lower section of the blade and has a single incised line running around it about 7mm below the edge of the blade. The shaft is hollow and is 7mm in diameter where it joins the blade, tapering to 2mm at its apex. It has a largely intact base, 12mm in diameter and this has two small circular holes, 2mm in diameter, sitting across a linear groove with a V shaped cross section, just about its edge.

Between the incised line and the base of the shaft there is an incised inscription running down one side of the shaft which reads IIIIIII X V (with two straight lines emerging from its inside) IXI (these lines join forming a 'bow tie' motif). If read as numerals it forms IIIIIII (7?) X(10) VIII (8) IXI (1000).

The blade is also inscribed on one face with lettering formed of small circular punch marks, over six rows, the lower three divided by the apex of the shaft.

Roger Tomlin has published the spearhead in Britannia 2018 and there has interpreted it as-

[...] | SILVA|NO | CVNOMI|NVS | VODRM | DON, probably [deo] | Silva|no | Cunomi|nus vo[tu]m | don(avit). 'To the god Silvanus, Cunominus gave (this as) a vow.

If these are numerals, two are not of standard form: '7' consists of seven successive strokes, as if a tally, rather than VII; '8' is not VIII, but V ('5') enclosing three short incisions. IXI is repeated on the next item, where if taken by itself, it might be seen as decorative. In view of the dedication to Silvanus, it is tempting to see these numerals as tallies of game bagged by a huntsman. Iron spearheads have been found at temple-sites in Britain and Gaul, including Uley (where the god is variously identified as Mercury, Mars or Silvanus) and Lamyatt Beacon. They have been seen as votive, but this (copper-alloy) spearhead is the first to be found in Britain with a votive inscription.
The crucial first line consists of the lower loop of S (visually, D and O are much less likely); a vertical stroke with bottom-serif; another vertical trending left with a single dot to the right, acceptable as a narrow L; and four diagonals (including two incomplete) acceptable as the remains of VA. For SILVANO thus in dot-punched capitals, compare RIB 194. In the missing blade-tip above, there would have been enough space for DEO. The dedicator's name, Cunominus, is unattested, but there are many Celtic names formed from the element *cuno-s ('hound'). In the next line, VODRM (instead of the expected VOTVM or VSLM) may be the dot-puncher's misunderstanding of guide-letters inked(?) in the cramped space either side of the shaft-tip.