sword
- Museum number
- 1995,0704.1
- Description
-
An iron sword, lacking the top of the tang, which is now 918 mm long. The very slightly bent blade is corroded and chipped along the edges. It is 797 mm long and lenticular in section, with fairly straight sides and a rather narrow rounded tip. At the top the blade is about 52 mm wide, but it narrows rapidly to 45 mm and much of it seems to be about 40 mm wide, though the edges are badly chipped. Vertical striations throughout the length of the blade show that it was constructed by surface-to-surface piling. The blade has been stamped twice on the same side (the top of the upper 50 mm, and the bottom of the lower 90 mm, from the hilt end) with impressions of the same stamp, a broad crescent shape enclosing three raised dots. The tang, more oval than rectangular in section at the top, is broad and flat towards the blade. Its straight iron hilt end, 63 mm wide and horizontally ribbed, obscures the shoulders, which may have been straight. The carved organic grip survives: 58 mm long and cracked down one side, it is made of animal bone (identified by Caroline Cartwright). There is no trace of the scabbard.
- Production date
- 100 BC - AD 1 (circa)
- Dimensions
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Length: 797 millimetres (blade)
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Length: 58 millimetres (handle grip)
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Length: 918 millimetres (total)
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Weight: 478 grammes
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Thickness: 4.80 millimetres (blade, max)
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Thickness: 15.50 millimetres (handle grip)
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Thickness: 8.90 millimetres (hilt end)
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Width: 23 millimetres (handle grip)
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Width: 57.80 millimetres (hilt end)
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Width: 50 millimetres (top of blade)
- Curator's comments
-
Stead 2006
Found with an Anglo-Saxon sword and another Iron Age blade (1995,0704.2) in 1987 in a gravel pit, apparently from a buried river channel, Bird et al. 1989:182; 1990:211
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La Tène III swords were designed for slashing rather than thrusting. They were very long, broad and flat with rounded ends. The chape of the scabbard was barely distinguishable from the metal binding.
- Location
- On display (G50/dc10)
- Acquisition date
- 1995
- Acquisition notes
- Found in the course of gravel extraction.
Originally conserved in the British Museum in 1986 with Anglo-Saxon sword found at the same time for Tarmac; In 1995 the company agreed to donate the group.
- Department
- Britain, Europe and Prehistory
- Registration number
- 1995,0704.1