Sword

A Late Bronze Age bronze Ewart Park type sword dating 925 - 800 BCE. The blade is leaf-shaped and the sword has a V-shaped butt, the tang has slight flanges and two vertical ribs. There are nine rivet-holes on hilt, three on handle and six on shoulders.The blade has ricasso, central thickening and bevelled edges. The blade has been deliberately damaged prior to deposition. Type: Ewart Park, South-eastern Step 2, Burgess and Colquhoun 1998, no. 279.

In the Bronze Age swords were highly valuable and probably important markers of status and identity. They were difficult to cast and required a high level of skill from the craftperson who made them. Several Bronze Age swords have been discovered in the Thames. It is highly likely they were deliberately deposited in the river. This practice may have been linked to the importance of rivers both in a practical sense and a spiritual one. RIvers were special places, water was essential for life but could also be a threat to life. This blade was deliberately damaged before it was deposited into the river, perhaps 'killing' the blade to change it from its use as a weapon to its use as an offering.