Object: Knife (Bronze Age)
Period: Bronze Age to BRONZE AGE (-950 to -750)
Material: Copper alloy 
Found: Ashley, Cotswold, Gloucestershire (South West)
Discovery method: Metal detector
Length: 134.4 mm
Weight: 37.7 g
Description: Late Bronze Age socketed knife of Thorndon Type and of Ewart Park metalworking, corresponding with Needham’s Period 7, dated to c. 950-750BC



The cast knife is near-complete, but in two fragments, broken across the slightly distorted blade (with a distorted length of 134.4mm and a weight of 37.7g). The socket has a sub-oval mouth (21.8mm x 12.7mm external, 17.6mm x 10.0mm and 33.2mm deep) and has gently concave, waisted sides (with a minimum width of 18.6mm). The socket faces are gradually convergent towards the blade and have two perforations to secure handle, the upper perforation is central and larger (at 5.1mm – 5.9mm diameter) and the lower is towards one side, smaller and somewhat irregular on one face (at 4.4mm – 6.5mm) and may be a secondary attachment attempt. One side of the socket sides has a sub-linear opening (18.8mm long 2.5mm – 5.2mm wide), probably a casting flaw. The socket and the blade have a near-linear junction, helping to define the knife as Thorndon type. The blade is both widest and thickest beneath the socket (with a width and thickness of 19.9mm and 4.2mm respectively and a minimum thickness above the tip of 0.8mm). The edges are convergent and concave below the socket (for 18mm) before being straight and gently convergent until just above the tip (14mm). The blade has a flattened midsection (8.8mm wide at the socket and 3.2mm wide above the tip), flanked by gently concave blade facets and giving a hexagonal blade section.  Both blade edges have considerable damage and nicks, all of which have patinated surfaces, suggesting, they may be contemporary with the use of the knife, or may have occurred post deposition but some time ago. The blade has a shallow S-shaped bend, at the top and mid blade, which is likely to have resulted in the break. The surface on one face is heavily-pitted around both the bend and break. The surface has a pale to mid green patina with no clear evidence for sharpening striations on the blade edge. 



Thorndon Socketed knives have a distribution perceived as being concentrated in Southern England. As of 2006, there were seven recorded socketed knives of Thorndon type know from south- western Britain, and specifically Wales (Gwilt, 2006, p 54)[1] , with a largely North Wales distribution and with only one outlier in South Wales, recovered within the St Nicholas hoard from the Vale of Glamorgan. Since then a hoard from Glascoed in Monmouthshire also contained a fragment of a Thorndon type socketed knife and another two examples have been recorded with PAS[2] from Bridgend and Newport in South Wales. There are no examples recorded with PAS from Gloucestershire at the time of writing. The Thorndon type knives from the South Wales hoards are associated with Ewart Park metalworking but both hoards also contain an element of the Carp’s Tongue complex.



The two fragments were found approximately 3.5m apart and were at a depth of approximately 0.12m, seemingly within ploughsoil and separated by the plough.





[1] [1] Gwilt, A., 2006; A Late Bronze Age Hoard from Trevalyn Farm, Rossett, Wrexham; Studia Celtica; The Bulletin of the Board of Celtic Studies XXXIX 2005



[2] NMGW 2011.146.1, 2017.87.1
Subsequent action: Returned to finder