File:Socketed sickle (FindID 718660).jpg

English: A copper alloy early Iron Age socketed heeled sickle of transition Ewart Park/Llyn Fawr c. 800 - 600BC.

The object is in three pieces and has been irregularly broken during antiquity. The sickle consists of an oval socket and a decorated curved blade which is almost complete with a downwards facing point. The socket measures 37.17mm in length and is 22.12mm in width at the opening. The rim of the socket is slightly thicker at the outer edge or back of the sickle measuring 5.06mm thick. The rim is of uneven thickness measuring 1.51mm at its thinnest part. The internal depth of the socket is 50.03mm. On each face of the socket, 4.25mm above the socket mouth, is a circular rivet hole. One rivet hole, measuring 6.10mm in diameter is broken at the base, with the crack running down to the socket mouth, and is half in-filled with corrosion. The rivet hole on the opposite face measures 5.81mm in diameter and is complete. It is fully in-filled with corrosion. 24.25mm above the socket mouth is a decorative circumferential moulded ridge. 20.33mm above this the sickle expands to form the heal of the blade which curves outwards before arching up and around to form the length of the blade.

On one face of the object the heal, in line with the socket, is decorated with a squirly circlet decoration. Three worn ridges expand from this circlet along the length of the blade, becoming more worn and flattened towards the incomplete point of the sickle. The upper and lower edges of the blade along with the point have been damaged probably due to abrasion within the plough soil and corrosion. A large wedge of the object is missing between the central part of the blade and the internal edge of the socket.

The opposite face of the object has an oval depression which may have been a corresponding decorative circlet, now worn and damaged. Traces of three ridges can be seen in places on this face along the length of the blade however the decoration is much more worn. It can be assumed that the decoration mirrored that of the other side.

The socketed fragment of the sickle measures 78.18mm in length, 48.10mm in width and is 21.95mm thick. It weighs 58.0g.

The central fragment of the blade measures 61.68mm in length, 24.48mm in width and is 8.86mm thick at its centre. The cutting edge measures 2.52mm thick at the upper cutting edge and 2.55 mm thick at the lower or inner cutting edge. It weighs 16.7g.

The terminal/pointed fragment measures 39.90mm in length and 20.96. The blade is 3.43mm thick with the cutting edge measuring 1.73mm at the outer or upper edge and 1.38mm at the lower or inner cutting edge. It measures 9.4g.

Combined the sickle weighs 84.0g.

The object has a mid-brown patina with patches of light green corrosion in places and adhering traces of iron corrosion. There are no visible casting seems. The iron corrosion indicates that it has come from somewhere waterlogged / iron panned at one point.