Complete, with corrosion and accretions, bent in antiquity: Originally c.30cm

A bronze spear-blade with a central rib and folded terminal on the attachment tang. Sloping shoulders indicate a Middle Bronze Age date. The spear blade was intentionally bent in antiquity, a ritual sometimes performed on weapons deposited in votive or funerary contexts, perhaps to put them out of use but more likely to symbolically ‘kill’ them to accompany their owner in death. 18.4% were thus disabled, though often only the tip was bent. Tip usually more pointed: possibly re-ground after damage. Even in the Middle Bronze Age, spears (unlike knives) were usually made with less hard, arsenical bronze, rather than valuable imported tin, since spears were used as thrusting, not cutting weapons.

Cf./Notes: Balthazar 1990 p163, 321; Webb & Frankel 2015; British Museum Nos. 1899,1229.60 ; 1969,1231.121 ; Ashmolian AN1896-1908.C.115