Description

Summary: Socketed spearhead with central ridge and single rivet hole, from the Spoil heap, Melksham By-pass, Melksham. Of a type typical of the Ewart Park metal working phase.

Research results

A copper alloy 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. Ferrous staining around the peg holes suggests that iron rivets were originally used to hold the spearhead to the shaft, and a series of seemingly deliberate nicks along the blade edge may relate to the ritual 'killing' of the spearhead. River gravels found within the socket of the spearhead relate to its depositional context, suggesting that the hoard had been deposited alongside 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.