Dagger

A Late Iron Age iron dagger dating 100 to 0 BCE. This LA Tene III dagger has a slender blade that has an exaggeratedly pointed triangular shape. It has an unusually flattened cross-section with bevelled edges. The handle springs from an arched hilt-guard and comprises a square-sectioned tang, the end of which has been flattened into a knob. No trace now survives of the organic hilt-plates.

The dagger was bent into an 'S' shape when first found, but has since been straightened out. The bending of the blade was probably deliberate, intended to make it unuseable. This could have been to remove it from everyday use and transform it into something else, possibly an offering or a gift to the river, or to despatch it to the spirit world. This is one of a number of Iron Age objects that appear to have been chosen to be placed at this stretch of river, along with fragments of human skulls and long bones.