Object: Sickle (Bronze Age)
Period: Bronze Age to BRONZE AGE (-950 to -500)
Material: Copper alloy 
Found: Sketty, Swansea, Swansea (Wales)
Discovery method: Metal detector
Length: 30.2 mm
Weight: 18.1 g
Description: Late Bronze Age socketed sickle of Ewart Park or Llyn Fawr metalworking, corresponding to Needham's (1996)[1] Periods 7 - 8, dated to 950 - 500BC.



The sickle is fragmentary, represented by the incomplete socket and beginning of the blade (with a surviving length of 30.2mm and a weight of 18.1g). The socket is oval and is basal edge is undamaged (24.6mm long and 11.7mm wide, with internal dimensions of 23.1mm x 18-19mm). The socket is cast (1.3mm thick) without a visible casting seam and the side without the blade is straight. The top of the socket is damaged and has been slightly distorted (with internal dimensions 12.4mm x 7 - 9mm). The socket is perforated with two pairs of holes to accommodate the missing attachment rivets. The pair of holes near the apex have a slightly larger diameter (at 5.0mm - 6.0mm compared to the lower holes at 4.7mm - 5.5mm) and the pairs are not now directly opposite each other, probably because of distortion in the socket. The beginning of the blade springs from the side of the socket laterally, defining it as of Fox's (1939)[2] Group I socketed sickles. The small fragment of the surviving blade has clear evidence for a midrib. The blade is of lentoid, or pointed-oval section (23.5mm long and 5.6mm thick) and the top of the blade would have been below the top of the socket. There is no definite evidence for a rib on the short blade fragment surviving. The surface has a black patina with areas of brown stripped and corroded surface.



Although fragmentary, there appears to be enough of the sickle to identify it as a socketed type of Fox's Group I and was likely to be of Late Bronze Age to Earliest Iron Age date, c. 1100 BC - 600BC. In Wales, sickles have been found associated with Ewart Park and Llyn Fawr assemblages within South-East Wales and probable tanged examples are represented in the Llantwit Major (Vale of Glamorgan) and Glascoed (Monmouthshire) hoards, both of Ewart Park metalworking and socketed examples in the Cardiff and Llyn Fawr (Rhondda Cynon Taff) hoards both of Llyn Fawr metalworking. This example appears to be a westerly outlier of the South-Welsh examples. Fox (ibid) demonstrated that sickles have a largely Irish distribution with a spread in Scotland and within England sickles are concentrated in the Thames Valley and in East Anglia. The few examples recorded by PAS to date, also have a largely eastern British distribution, with western examples of tanged form from Gloucestershire[3] and Somerset[4] and a sickle blade[5] from Rossett, Wrexham. Since the blade of this example ends before the top of the socket, the sickle may have been of open or closed, flat-topped form, which Fox (ibid.) suggests have an earlier date in the Group I sequence. Savory (1980, p 56)[6] stated that earlier stages of socketed sickles were not represented in Wales but it is possible to suggest that this example may represent the first. Few recorded socketed sickles have two rivet holes or have the rivet holes positioned adjacent to the blade.



[1] Needham, S. 1996; Chronology and Periodisation in the British Bronze Age, Acta Archaeologica 67, p. 121-140



[2] Fox, C., 1939; The Socketed Bronze Sickles of the British Isles; with special reference to an unpublished specimen from Norwich; Proceedings of The Prehistoric Society 5, 222 - 248



[3] GLO-D4D0A6



[4] GLO-32DD84



[5] HESH-199F11



[6] Savory, H.; 1980; A Guide Catalogue of the Bronze Age Collections; National Museum of Wales
Subsequent action: Returned to finder