Knife

The iron blade has parallel edge and back (Manning Type 1), turning down through and angle of 45 degrees to the tip. The tang is slotted into a solid rectangular copper-alloy handle, elaborately decorated with lines of oblique lines and circles and terminating in the head of a boar. The boar’s head is well modelled in a naturalistic style, with prominent ears, open mouth and deep-set eyes, whiskers and tusks indicated by engraved lines. A small trace of iron on the terminal, at the nostrils, suggests that the tang ran right through the handle, an arrangement seen in knives of Manning type 1d and the general profile of the handle, which curves in at the junction with the blade is broadly similar to the ivory handles of that form. This has been confirmed by X-ray showing that the handle is a hollow casting and that the tang runs though it (X-ray X7544).