Casgliadau Arlein

South Wales Variant type socketed axe. This is a near complete socketed axe with a damaged mouth. This is a large socketed axe with an angular hexagonal cross-section, with slightly divergent and concave shaped sides. The axe has a prominent but narrow mouth moulding, with a high placed and narrow loop descending from its underside. Three very prominent and wide ribs descend from the moulding on each face and are convergent. Unusually, the central rib is significantly longer than the two lateral ribs, the former extending down three-quarters of the length of the face and the latter only extending half the length of the blade. The face edges are angled and significantly narrower than the sides and the edges have been deliberately raised, giving the overall effect similar to a faceted axe. The axe has a deep front back mouth axis, the mouth being square in external outline and with a sub-rectangular internal aperture, with curved edges. One half of the mouth top has been broken, the break looking fresh in places, suggesting breakage during removal from the ground. Two runner-stubs are visible around the mouth, located at 180 degrees to each other, but there is insufficient of the mouth surviving to tell whether or not there were originally four runners. The sides of the axe are significantly angled, coming to their widest point at the central casting seam. While the join is prominent and angled, there is little excess and it appears that the flashes may have been hammered flat in places. There are linear striations along the blade facets and parallel with the blade edge, indicating that the axe was sharpened for use. Most of the original surfaces have survived and the axe has a grey-green patina. The mouth edges and blade edge are eroded, with light green and fragile powdery surfaces. There are also small patches of eroded lighter green surface on the faces and external loop edge. The casting seams down the sides of the axe are visible, but were hammered or filed down carefully after casting.