File:Bronze Age palstave blade (casting seam) (FindID 162079).jpg

English: Cast copper alloy blade from a palstave, or Middle Bronze Age axe, which would have had built up sides and a stop ridge where the broken end is now, to stop the wooden haft or handle from slipping down the blade. The casting seams still remain on both sides of the blade. The axe seems to have been poorly cast as it looks quite porous at the broken end of the blade, and the stop ridge end has also been hammered in antiquity.

"The axe may be unused having been broken during the late stages of manufacture, or perhaps when someone first tried to use it. When you cast a palstave there is a tendency for the septum to freeze before the much thicker centre section. Hot metal can no longer feed into that area which then suffers a lot of shrinkage; as it is the last area to freeze any dross and other debris ends up in that area too. The analysis gave a high tin bronze (15.7% tin) which is much to be expected either side of the Channel at that time. The blade is as-cast and it is rather more usual to find whole or broken imported palstaves in that state than more locally produced ones. I would guess that it came from the north coasts of the Armorican peninsula to as far east as the Cotentin in France." (Report by Dr. Peter Northover, Dept. of Materials, Oxford)

>From its style and thickness, it probably dates from the Taunton phase, c.1400-1300 BC.

The blade is 82 mm long and 59 mm wide and 3 mm thick at the cutting edge and 22 mm wide and 19 mm thick at the butt or stop ridge end.