File:DENO-E81A92, Bronze Age Socketed Knife (FindID 280205).jpg

English: Two fragments of a late Bronze Age cast copper-alloy socketed knife of the Thorndon Class. The socket and butt of the blade are all that survives. The socket is narrow and elliptical in shape with the opening measuring 22.4mm by 9.4mm. A rivet hole measuring 0.48mm diameter is present and passes through both sides of the socket located 15.1mm from the socket rim. It is across the point of the rivet hole that the object has broken. Inside the socket are the remains of the wooden handle.

The second fragment forms the butt of the knife blade with the innermost part of the socket hollow visible at the point of the break. The moulding of the socket narrows at this point to form the more narrow width and flatter shape of the blade. Not enough of the blade survives for anything to be said with certainty about its form although it appears to be tapering inwards from the very base of where the socket ends and is elliptical in section.

The item has a rich dark brown patina with some traces of bronze disease along the breaks.

Measurements: Fragment 1: Length 23.8mm, width (at neck) 26.7mm, thickness (at neck) 13.9mm, thickness (wall) 2.1mm, weight 15.45g. Fragment 2: Length 25.2mm, width (max) 26.7mm, thickness (max) 9.5mm, thickness (‘blade’ at break) 4.6mm, weight 16.71g.

The distribution of the Thorndon class appears to be predominantly although not solely in the south-east. From their inclusion in Late Bronze Age ‘Founders’ hoards, accompanied by metalwork from the Ewart Park phase, it is possible to date this class of objects to 800-900 BC.

Cf. Needham 1990, The Petters Late Bronze Age Metalwork, British Museum Occasional Paper 70.

See WILT-7201C2 for a more complete parallel.