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South Wales Type Socketed Axe - mouth and side-loop fragment (Find no.8/2)

Part of a hoard of 39 bronze fragments representing a minimum of 38 artefacts discovered in a field following agricultural drainage work. All of the artefacts were reported as being discovered within an area of 2.4m (8 feet) of each other, of each other and at approximate depths of 20-30cm (8-12 inches).

The patination of the objects is consistent with them having been buried in a peaty peaty deposit, which has been known to result in a brown or black patina (Fontijn 2002,40). The hoard findspot was near small watercourse. A search of the Historic Environment Record (www.archwilio.org.uk) revealed no Bronze Age features of sites in the adjacent fields.

Detailed Description; This is a mouth and side-loop fragment of a copper-alloy ribbed socketed axe. Enough of the mouth survives to indicate that the axe had a pronounced and narrow mouth moudling. The upper loop stub emerges from the position of the mouth moulding. The remains of two prominent longitudinal ribs descend from the underside of the mouth moulding, closely set and near-parallel. The casting seam is visible as a raised blunt ridge down the surviving side of the axe. The break edges appear within the patinated surface and are well eroded, suggesting that the axe was broken in antiquity.

The fragment has a brown to orange-brown patina. Fresh bronze and green sub-surface are visible along the surviving face edge, indicating more recent damage, possibly caused whilst the object was still buried or during its recent discovery and retrieval.