Object: Axehead (Bronze Age)
Period:  to  (-2050 to -1700)
Material: Copper alloy 
Found: Dyffryn Clydach, Neath Port Talbot, Neath Port Talbot (Wales)
Discovery method: Metal detector
Length: 155.3 mm
Weight: 507.3 g
Description: Early Bronze Age bronze Developed Flat Axe of Type Aylesford and of Stage IV metalworking, corresponding to Needham's (1996)  Period 3, dated to 2,050 - 1,700BC


The axe is complete (with a length of 155.3mm and a weight of 507.3g). The butt is moderately rounded and thin (with a width of 38.4mm and a thickness of 3mm). The sides are concave, narrowing to a point near the butt (with a width of 36.1mm and 35mm from the butt), before gradually diverging to approximately the midpoint and diverging sharply to the blade. The sides have been carefully hammered to produce a bevel and a central ridge. The blade is moderately curved and is unexpanded at the tips (producing a blade width of 82.3mm). There is no evidence of flanges on the edges of the face but the axe has a lozenge-shaped long section, indicating it to be of 'Developed' form. The median bevel occurs at the midpoint of the axe (approximately 77mm from the butt, where the axe has a maximum thickness of 13.5mm and a width of 41.1mm). The axe faces are convex across their widths at the blade and butt and are near-flat at the mid-section. A gentle blade facet is discernible on both faces (occurring around 11mm from the blade edge). There is no evidence of applied decoration on the axe and no definite sharpening striations at the blade. The surface is heavily-pitted with a pale-green corrosion; patches of the original surface survive with a silvery, dark-green patina. 


Aylseford axes are typologically the most primitive and therefore the earliest of the Developed axe types (Schmidt & Burgess, 1981, p 60) . This find represents the thirteenth known example of a recorded Aylesford type axe from Wales, with a general distribution centred on Glamorganshire and eastern Gwent for the seven examples from South Wales.
Notes: Metallurgical analysis  was attempted, with the axe examined whole within the specimen chamber. Where possible, areas of metal exposed from under the surface corrosion were analysed and apart from very superficial surface swabbing of the artefact there was no sample preparation. The results are semi-quantitative and overall totals taken from minimally prepared surfaces are usually affected to some degree by the surface geometry of the artefact, including factors such as curvature, pitting and indentations. Other factors that can also affect the results include surface oxidation, surface enrichment or depletion of certain elements, contamination from closely adhering dirt, and preferential corrosion. 

Four separate readings were taken and the majority of the overall totals acquired were slightly low due to the factors described above. The results were normalised to 100% to obtain consistency between the readings and to make the analyses comparable with other results. The average results showed the axe composition to be an unleaded tin-bronze containing 84.3% - 92.0% (with a mean of 83.9%) copper with 7.8% - 23.9% (with a mean of 15.4%) tin. Trace elements of antimony, arsenic, nickel and sulphur were detected, with means of 0.6%, 0.4%, 0.3% and 0.2% respectively.
Subsequent action: Returned to finder