File:Decorated flat axe (FindID 93081-57945).jpg

English: Cast copper alloy incomplete flat axe with the beginnings of a stop ridge and flanged sides dating to the Early Bronze Age c.2000-1700 BC. The blade end of the axe is corroded but the angle suggests that it may have had a crescentic blade. Both faces of the axe are decorated with straight lines punched into the axe after casting, about 5mm in length, and about 1mm apart, in what is referred to as a 'rain pattern'. The axe is 113mm long, 52mm wide at the blade end, 23mm wide at the butt end, 10mm in thickness and weighs 186.03g.

   Comparable examples of decorated flat axes from the Southwest can be found in Pearce (1983) from Southleigh in Devon (p.455 & 600, Plate 39 No.297) and from Mount Pleasant in Dorset (p.468 & 609, Plate 48, No.371). But the decoration on this axe covers the whole axe and is more regular and evenly spaced like the example from Preston Down, Weymouth (p.487 & 621, Plate 60, No.480). There is also a similar example in the Royal Institution of Cornwall’s collections from Ladock where there are marks between the flanges, but these are sparse and irregular.

   

Flat axes decorated with this ‘rain pattern’ and with crescentic blades can be found during the Mile Cross-Aylesford phase (c.2000-1900 BC) of the Early Bronze Age, such as the Class 3 axe illustrated in 'The Circulation of Metal in the British Bronze Age: The Application of Lead Isotope Analysis' (Rohl& Needham 1998, 124, Fig. 25, No.47). Examples with the continuous rain-pattern are found in the following Willerby-Bush Barrow phase (c.1900-1700 BC), such as the Class 4 axes illustrated in Rohl & Needham (1998, 125, Fig. 26, No.57 & B).