Description

Summary: Socketed iron spearhead with a decorated socket and welded collar, form the spoil heap, Melksham By-pass, Melksham.

Research results

An iron spear, found in 1972 amongst material excavated during the construction of the Melksham by-pass as part of a hoard of Llyn Fawr and earlier metalwork, with the latest objects suggesting deposition in the earliest Iron Age. The spearhead can be compared to examples from the Iron Age of the Alpine region of Europe, however its decoration is far more simple, and has more in common with Late Bronze Age decorative styles. It thus represents a rare transitional piece, representing the importation and adaption of continental styles and techniques by local smiths in the very early stages of the British Iron Age. this spear head and the others in the group were eventually deposited in marshy ground beside the river Avon.

The Melksham hoard has been photographed by Boughton (2019), who notes that it is one of only two Llyn Fawr hoards known in the country to not contain a socketed axehead.