File:Bronze Age palstave (front, profile, reverse) (FindID 241753).jpg

English: A copper-alloy palstave dating from the Middle Bronze Age (1500BC-1150BC). Length: 161mm; width: 66.5mm; thickness (flanges): 30.9mm; mass: 444g. The butt is slightly incomplete. There is a continuous U shaped flange/stop line on the front and reverse of the palstave. In profile, the flange facets taper to the butt at one end and to the stop at the other end. The palstave is unlooped. The blade flares out in plan below the stop, to a convex cutting edge. The blade is sub-triangular in profile. On one side of the blade there is a shallow central depression immediately below the stop. There is a midrib running down the front and reverse of the blade.

The palstave has a smooth green patina with some brown adhesions from its time in the ground. Where the surface has been lost - on the cutting edge, the butt and portions of the blade, septum and flanges - the palstave has a powdery light green pitted surface.

The presence of a midrib is particularly associated with early midribbed palstaves (Group I). But the blade faces of early midribbed palstaves generally have raised edges, as if continuing the line of flanges below the stop (see: “The Axes of Scotland and Northern England”, Schmidt and Burgess, 1981, p.126). This feature is not present on the palstave recorded here. There is also a shallow depression below the stop on one side of the blade. Shield-like decoration on the blade just below the stop is a characteristic of shield palstaves (Group II), and can be in the form of shallow depressions as well as raised mouldings or panels (ibid. p.117).

The palstave recorded here shares typological features with Group I and Group II palstaves. These were the primary forms introduced to Britain in the Middle Bronze Age (ibid.p.119). Of the three types of early midribbed palstaves identified by Schmidt and Burgess, Type Chepstow stand closer to shield palstaves than Type Liswarry and Type Coed Llan.