File:AXEHEAD (FindID 843546).jpg

Possible Anglo Saxon 'T' shaped broad axe of 8th to 12th century date. The rectangular blade has a cutting edge 115mm wide but is very short, only 37mm long, and behind this there is a narrow solid rectangular-section stem about 40-45mm long linking it to the socket. The stem is slightly bent, so that the handle would have been at a slight angle to the blade. The hole or eye through the socket is distinctly rectangular, 32.33 x 14.60mm, and externally the socket is 56mm long.

When the axehead is viewed from above and rotated so that the socket is straight and symmetrical, it is clear that the blade is asymmetric; one face is much more steeply sloped than the other.

Summary of dimensions: The length is 137.67mm, width of blade 36.9mm, blade length is 115.53mm, shaft length to socket is 45.15mm. Socket eye has a length of 32.33mm and width of 14.60mm. The socket is an overall 56mm long, 41.65 wide, 31.14 thick. The walls of the socket are 10.35mm to 18.33mm thick.

This type of axe was in use in the early-medieval period; there are examples from the Flixborough tool hoard and some are also shown on the Bayeux Tapestry. Out of the four examples from Flixborough, two (nos. 2455 and 2456) have slightly angled sockets, and two (nos. 2454 and 2456) have asymmetric cross-section (Ottaway in Evans and Loveluck 2009, 256-64). The Flixborough hoard dates to somewhere in the 8th to 10th centuries, and the Bayeux Tapestry gives a good 11th-century date for the type.

Compare LANCUM-085845.