Birtley, bronze axe

HER Number:
654

District:
Gateshead

Site Name:
Birtley, bronze axe

Place:
Birtley

Map Sheet:
NZ25NE

Class:
Tools and Equipment

Site Type: Broad:
Cutting Equipment

Site Type: Specific:
Axe

General Period:
Prehistoric

Specific Period:
Bronze Age

Form of Evidence:
Find

Description:
In 1931 a bronze wing-flanged axe was found, apparently with a perforated stone hammer (HER no. 655), in Blythe & Co.'s brickyard at Birtley. It was recovered from "a mass of clay involved in a slight landslip, in a thin patch of gravel overlying deep deposits of late glacial lake muds. The gravel is part of an old stream delta formed in the lake, a small patch of dry ground in a swamp". The axe is 133 mm long, 52 mm wide, and has a widely splayed cutting edge and poorly developed stop ridges. It has a triangular tapering groove on each side. Raistrick's analysis: 82.73% copper, 17.2% tin, with traces of iron and nickel. It was exhibited twice to the Society of Antiquaries, but its present whereabouts are unknown.

Easting:
26498

Northing:
55797

Grid Reference:
NZ2649855797

Lats/Lons:

Sources:
<< HER 654 >> A. Raistrick, 1933, Exhibits, Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle, 4, V (for 1931-32), p. 212 A. Raistrick, 1933, Proceedings University of Durham Philosophical Society, -Vol. IX, pp. 47-54 W. Bulmer, 1942, A Bronze Age Winged Axe from Birtley, Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle, 4, IX (for 1939-41), 97, 107-8 R. Miket, 1984, The Prehistory of Tyne and Wear, pp. 32-33, fig. 8, no. 1