File:Bronze Age Axe (FindID 458783).jpg

English: Bronze Age axe blade, probably of Middle to Late Bronze Age, c. 1,500 - 700BC

The axe is fragmentary, represented by part of the blade edge (with a surviving length of 25.6mm, a surviving width of 30.9mm, a maximum surviving thickness of 10.4mm and a weight of 37.7g). The surviving side is near-straight and slightly divergent to the blade tip (producing a surviving blade width of 30.0mm). The side suggests that the axe was of slightly hexagonal section. The casting seam is evident and has been fettled, seemingly by hammering. The axe faces were gently concave across their widths but slightly convex across their lengths. At the break there is the slight suggestion of a rectangular base to a socket, possibly suggesting that the axe has broken across the socket base, although the identification is somewhat speculative. There is a notch in the blade edge which seemingly occurred in antiquity. The current surface is heavily-pitted with a mid-green patina.

The casting seam on the axe implies a casting technology using a two or three piece mould technology and therefore an axe of cast-flanged type at the earliest, and more likely a palstave or socketed axe fragment. The speculative identification of the socket base may indicate a Late Bronze Age date, c. 1,200 - 700BC.