A HISTORY OF BUCKINGHAMSHIRE 



is particularly well shaped and finished, and bears a kind of ornament 

 produced by slight punctures or dots. 



Here, too, was found the very interesting specimen of a bronze sickle 1 

 now in the British Museum. Unfortunately it is not quite perfect, but 

 it displays considerable care, the blade being well developed, whilst its 

 rigidity and strength are secured by two nearly parallel curved ridges 

 running throughout its existing length. 



By far the most important bronze-age object yet found at Taplow, 

 and, indeed, in the county, is a rapier-like socketed 

 spear-head decorated with two studs of gold and by a 

 series of punctured dots which bear an intimate relation 

 to the ornament on the example just described as having 

 been given by Mrs. Ada Benson. This spear-head has 

 been fully described in the Proceedings of the Society of 

 Antiquaries of London* by Mr. Charles H. Read, and 

 we venture to quote from that description : 



As a type of spear-head it is up to the present unique in 

 this country, and even in Ireland the only example figured by Sir 

 John Evans (fig. 400) 3 makes no pretensions to the same artistic 

 qualities. This specimen was recently found in a creek near 

 Taplow, at the same spot where some ordinary leaf-shaped 

 spear-heads were discovered some years ago, and presented to 

 the British Museum by Mrs. Benson. The socket of the spear, 

 which is filled with the remains of the wood shaft, has unfortu- 

 nately been damaged, so that the original length is impossible 

 to ascertain, but the present length is 17 J inches, the blade 

 alone measuring 15! inches in length. It has been cast with 

 considerable skill, and the edge of the upper curve has ap- 

 parently been hammered, as is customary, which both hardens 

 the metal and produces at the same time a keener edge. The 

 lower part of the wings has also been hammered so as to produce a 

 furrow or channel near the edge, and the edge itself is not only 

 beaten up to produce a flange, but is also ornamented with a 

 herring-bone design. On each side of the broad mid-rib is a row 

 of dots which continues on the inner side of the channel within 

 the wings. 4 On each face of the wings are two gold studs, 

 conical in form and apparently of nearly pure metal. How 

 these are made fast is not quite easy to see, as the studs do not 

 come exactly opposite one another on the two faces, and it would 

 seem as if the hole through which the rivet joining them passes 

 is in a diagonal direction. This feature, i.e., the presence of the 

 gold studs, has not hitherto been found in any spear-head of the 

 bronze age ; similar studs, however, occur upon a stone bracer in 

 the British Museum, which was found at Driffield, East Riding, 

 Yorkshire. Below the wings have been originally two loops of 

 triangular section, only one of which now remains. 



Apart from the special interest of this spear-head as an un- 

 usual and artistic production of the bronze age, it has the additional interest of show- 

 ing how the socketed spear-head was evolved from the sword-like weapon which has 



1 This is figured in the Guide to the Bronze Age Antiquities in the British Museum, p. 80, fig. 67 (i). 



a Second series, vol. xix. pp. 287-289. 3 Ancient Bronze Implements, etc. 



4 This kind of dotted ornament is of great interest as being almost identical with that on one of the 

 spear-heads in the group from Taplow already described. Probably both specimens were the work of one 

 man. 



184 



SPEAR-HEAD FOUND 

 AT TAPLOW. 



