Sword

A Middle Bronze Age bronze Late Penard, Limehouse - a British copy of an Erbenheim type sword dating c. 1150 BCE. When first recovered in 1835 it had a wooden or bone grip that disintegrated on handling by the finders.

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 craft-person 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.