BRONZE AGE MINIATURE OBJECT

Votive socketed axehead length 18mm, width 13mm, thickness 7mm, weight 3.11g. The socket at the rear of the axe is oval, there is a darker non-copper alloy material in socket which has been truncated immediately after leaving the mouth of the hole, suggesting that the piece may have been mounted/hafted. The loop projects from the top of the rear of the axe this is small and rounded. The blade is rectangular. This scaled down model of the larger socketed axe of the Late Bronze Age is a very rare find, it is likely to be a religious offering not too dissimilar in nature to the miniature axe heads of the Late Iron Age-Roman Period, many of which are either found in graves sites such as an example found in one of the Arras chariot burials in Yorkshire as a associated with religious sites. Four examples have been found at Whitchurch in the East Midlands these examples have been dated to the Late Bronze Age to the Early Iron Age although this tradition does continue through the Iron Age and into the Roman Period.