Dog Walker Finds 3,400-Year-Old Bronze Axe Head
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A sharp-eyed dog walker made an extraordinary discovery when he spotted what is believed to be a Bronze Age axe head during a walk through woodland in England.
John Smith’s dog might not be a bloodhound, but it still helped him find an ancient treasure in Gloucestershire’s Forest of Dean. When Smith’s dog took him off course during a routine walk, the local resident had a look around and soon noticed the glimmer of a Bronze Age axe head lodged among some tree roots. He told the BBC that the copper alloy axe head "just sparkled the most beautiful green colour" due to a layer of verdigris that had built up over millennia as the metal was exposed to oxygen and other elements in the soil. “It was just wedged in one of the holes, so I pulled it out and there it was.”
There it was, indeed: an axe head that’s since been dated to between 1400 and 1275 B.C.E. Crafted in the palstave style, the bronze is a copper alloy containing about 10 percent tin. Smith handed the axe over to Forestry England, and from there Cotswold Archaeology took possession to investigate the find, which is now on display at the Dean Heritage Centre.
Leoni Dawson, community ranger for Forestry England, said: "It's incredible to think that tools like this have survived for thousands of years, hidden beneath our feet. Finds like these help us connect with the people who lived and worked in these landscapes long before us."
Cotswold Archaeology says that the five-inch-long axe head has a narrow, tapering rib central to both faces and was originally cast in a mold. By the Middle Bronze Age, two-part molds allowed for a more sophisticated design, such as this one, according to Kayleigh Spring, the objects conservator at the Dean Heritage Centre.
Humans have inhabited the Forest of Dean since the Stone Age, and Bronze Age residents may have been busy clearing the land for farming when the axe head was lost.