Object: Flat Axehead (Bronze Age)
Period: Bronze Age to BRONZE AGE (-1950 to -1700)
Material: Copper alloy 
Found: Llanbadrig, Isle of Anglesey, Isle of Anglesey (Wales)
Discovery method: Metal detector
Length: 150.5 mm
Thickness: 14.1 mm
Weight: 447.8 g
Description: Decorated developed flat axe, probably of Class 4E (following Needham forthcoming), corresponding with Schmidt and Burgess' (1981) type Scrabo Hill and with Type Ballyvalley (Harbison 1969) in Ireland. Axes of these types date towards the end of the Early Bronze Age: Needham's (1996) Period 3 c.1950 - 1700 BC/Needham et al.'s (1997) Willerby phase. This axe has the general shape of Type Glenalla, being long and narrow, but has the straight and slightly diverging sides characteristic of Type Scrabo Hill. The axe probably had a comparatively straight and thin butt and straight sides which diverge gradually up to a point near the blade corresponding to the beginning of decoration on the face, after which the sides turn out sharply to the expanded crescentic blade edge. The sides are worked up forming low, poorly defined flanges and are decorated with a hammered elliptical design. The faces are flat with a weak, slightly curved median bevel, the position of which approximately corresponds with the edge of the decoration. The blade has one well defined blade facet, and the blade edge has been lost. The decoration is concentrated on the blade and is composed of oblique chiselled regular strokes of 'rain' pattern confined at the top and bottom by two tight rows of opposing diagonals forming a herring-bone motif within a punched dot border, and on the sides by a single column of tight diagonals outside a punched dot column. The diagonal markings edged by punched dots extend up both sides with a single column in the centre, which ends well before the butt. The axe is in good condition with much of the surface surviving on one face, but fairly extensive pitting on the other face.
Notes: Axes of this type have a predominantly Irish distribution with a concentration in the northern half of the country (Harbison 1969); Harbison notes 846 Irish examples of Type Ballyvalley in his catalogue (ibid). The axe can be paralleled with an example found near Ballina, Co. Mayo (No 825, ibid.), which has similar decoration and is of similar dimensions, but differs in the fact that the example has two blade facets.



However, Class 4E axes are widely distributed across Britain (Needham 1983). In Wales, approximately 13 certain or probable Class 4E axes are currently known though none with comparable decoration. A 4E axe from Penrhyndeudraeth, Gwynedd, is decorated with small strokes in vertical and horizontal bands across the axe faces (Needham 1983, Fig.40.1), while one from Overton, Wrexham (NMGW-4596D8) is described as having a raindrop pattern. The flanges of a 4E axe found at Knighton, Powys (PUBLIC-905653), are decorated with a herringbone pattern.



A smaller, but similarly decorated 4E axe is known from Suffolk, which possessing cable decorated flanges and a panel of incised chevron decoration on both faces below a median bevel (Needham 1983, Fig.39, Sf 32).
Subsequent action: Returned to finder