File:(Possibly) Bronze Age knife (FindID 130491).jpg

English: A probable Bronze Age knife of the Urnfield tradition. It measures 164mm in length (although it is slightly bent in profile) and with a max width of 28mm just behind the tang. The tang is a faceted circle in section, max 8mm diameter and 18.5mm long.

The top of the knife is 6mm wide, narrowing to the sharp blade which thins in width to the point. Brendan O'Connor comments "This is a single-edged tanged knife. The turned-up point indicates that the blade is very worn. There is decoration on the blade, but I cannot make it out very well.

This is a continental Urnfield type. Without consulting many more sources than I have to hand, I would not like to say whereabouts it came from; while it could be central Europe, these knives are also found in France.

Wear has distorted the form of the blade, though there still appears to be a curve on the back towards the tang. The tang itself is plain, but tapering in form. This makes a relatively simple form - many knives have more complex tangs, which I would say is neither very early (like the knife in the Penard phase hoard from Ffynonnau), nor characteristic of the latest Urnfield phase, Hallstatt B3 equivalent to Ewart Park/Carp's Tongue in Britain. That would suggest an origin roughly equivalent to the British Wilburton phase, probably before 1000 BC, but would not necessarily date its deposition in Wiltshire as something of an antique".

The decoration is grooved and on both faces of the knife takes the form of five three-rings-and-dot behind the tang. It is rather jagged in places and gives the impression of a curvy edge to the rings. Between these and the point of the knife, again on both sides, are three incised lines between which are two lines of Us, one line of which are inverted. The decoration is rather crude and along the lines are several places where the line is wider than need be. Another curiousity is an apparant thin line of copper alloy added after the decoration, running across it vertically. It is only 1mm wide but clearly was applied afterwards - for what reason? Perhaps to cover a mistake, though it is rather randomly placed when much of the knife is quite crude. The patina is very shiny and the metal a yellowy brassy colour. The tang and tip of the knife have darker green areas of patination. One side of the blade may have been recently cleaned - very shiny yellow-bronze diagonal striations show on the surface.

The knife weighs 96.71g. While it is very likely this is a knife of the Urnfield tradition, it is very unlikely that it was deposited in Wiltshire at the time. It may then be a more recent loss.