is particularly well shaped and finished, and bears a kind of ornament produced by slight punctures or dots.
Here, too, was found the very interesting specimen of a bronze sickle[1] now in the British Museum. Unfortunately it is not quite perfect, but it displays considerable care, the blade being well developed, whilst its rigidity and strength are secured by two nearly parallel curved ridges running throughout its existing length.
Spear-head Found at Taplow.
By far the most important bronze-age object yet found at Taplow, and, indeed, in the county, is a rapier-like socketed spear-head decorated with two studs of gold and by a series of punctured dots which bear an intimate relation to the ornament on the example just described as having been given by Mrs. Ada Benson. This spear-head has been fully described in the Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of London[2] by Mr. Charles H. Read, and we venture to quote from that description:
As a type of spear-head it is up to the present unique in this country, and even in Ireland the only example figured by Sir John Evans (fig. 400)[3] makes no pretensions to the same artistic qualities. This specimen was recently found in a creek near Taplow, at the same spot where some ordinary leaf-shaped spear-heads were discovered some years ago, and presented to the British Museum by Mrs. Benson. The socket of the spear, which is filled with the remains of the wood shaft, has unfortunately been damaged, so that the original length is impossible to ascertain, but the present length is 17½ inches, the blade alone measuring 15¾ inches in length. It has been cast with considerable skill, and the edge of the upper curve has apparently been hammered, as is customary, which both hardens the metal and produces at the same time a keener edge. The lower part of the wings has also been hammered so as to produce a furrow or channel near the edge, and the edge itself is not only beaten up to produce a flange, but is also ornamented with a herring-bone design. On each side of the broad mid-rib is a row of dots which continues on the inner side of the channel within the wings.[4] On each face of the wings are two gold studs, conical in form and apparently of nearly pure metal. How these are made fast is not quite easy to see, as the studs do not come exactly opposite one another on the two faces, and it would seem as if the hole through which the rivet joining them passes is in a diagonal direction. This feature, i.e., the presence of the gold studs, has not hitherto been found in any spear-head of the bronze age; similar studs, however, occur upon a stone bracer in the British Museum, which was found at Driffield, East Riding, Yorkshire. Below the wings have been originally two loops of triangular section, only one of which now remains.
Apart from the special interest of this spear-head as an unusual and artistic production of the bronze age, it has the additional interest of showing how the socketed spear-head was evolved from the sword-like weapon which has- ↑ This is figured in the Guide to the Bronze Age Antiquities in the British Museum, p. 80, fig. 67 (1).
- ↑ Second series, vol. xix. pp. 287–289.
- ↑ Ancient Bronze Implements, etc.
- ↑ This kind of dotted ornament is of great interest as being almost identical with that on one of the spear-heads in the group from Taplow already described. Probably both specimens were the work of one man.
184
