Casgliadau Arlein

Class A / South Eastern Type with wing-ornamentation - upper body fragment (Find No.3)

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 the upper body fragment of a slender copper-alloy socketed axe with wing decoration. The sides of the axe are gently concave, with the axe appearing slightly waisted below the position of the side-loop. The axe has a sub-rectangular cross-section, with a sub-square shaped mouth in plan-view. The axe has a slightly flared mouth and a double mouth moulding, the uppermost of which is the most prominent. The side-loop descends from the position of the lower moulding. Each face is decorated with two poorly defined D-shaped mouldings, described as 'wing ornamentation'. These mouldings emerge from the position of the lower loop, extending for approximately 23.5mm down each face before merging with the face edges, just above the position of the lower break edge. Only the loop-side casting seam is visible, appearing as a slightly raised blunt ridge. The lower break edges are well eroded and appear within the patinated surface.

The axe has a brown patina. A short section of the loop has been damaged, revealing a dark grey-green sub-surface with tiny sections of fresh bronze visible. The surfaces of the axe are heavily eroded and the features poorly defined.