Flesh hook

An iron flesh hook. Square-sectioned rod with spiral twist for part of its length. The double-pronged head is formed of two U-shaped lengths of iron affixed to the rod, each forming a short hook on each side and then a longer, curving hook extending outwards at right angles to the rod. One of the upper hooks is now missing and its place has been taken by a curving prong of iron formed from the end of the main rod. Presumably this central prong would have originally extended as a vertical hook from the top of the rod.

The closest, but not exact parallel in London is an unprovenanced example in the Museum collection (MoL 16286) and it may be a variant of the normal types, having the two hooked teeth, as in Manning type 1 combined with type 2, which has a tooth on either side of the rod and a central hook projecting from the top (Manning 1985, 105).