1884.121.11

Collection type

Object

Description

Iron knife

Long description

Iron knife, sub-triangular in plan with nearly straight blade and back. Groove present along back edge. Tang positioned at mid-line to blade, tapering with end broken off. Corrosion on all surfaces. [JW [Excav. PR] 21/01/2013]

Geographical reference

United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

Europe > Northern Europe > United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

England Surrey Guildford Merrow Down unnamed tumulus ["Barrow 3"]

Person

Maker Unknown Maker

Field collector Augustus Henry Lane Fox Pitt-Rivers

PRM source Augustus Henry Lane Fox Pitt Rivers founding collection

Date / Period

Archaeological period: Anglo-Saxon

Date collected

1877 May

Acquisition information

Donated: 1884

Materials and processes

Material Iron Metal, Process Forged (Metal)

Dimensions

Length x Width x Height: max 138 x 14 x 3 mm, Weight 16 g

Object numbers

Accession number: 1884.121.11 PR no.: 90/ 8386

Research and responses

Pitt Rivers excavated in Surrey, at Merrow Down and Whitmore Common, in Oct 1876 and May 1877 [see Chapman, 1981][AP Leverhulme project on founding collection 1995-1998]

Upon examining a photograph of this knife Eleanor Blakelock, a PhD student at the University of Bradford, thought that as the knife "is not a scale tang (with rivets) and comes from a barrow I would be 80% certain it is Saxon in date". A copy of the email is in the RDF for 1884.121.11. [MN 03/06/2010]

Associated publications

Saunders, P.R. 1980. Saxon barrows excavated by General Pitt Rivers on Merrow Down, Guildford. Surrey Archaeological Collections 72:69-75. [Dan Hicks 18/12/2012] P-40: Lane Fox, A.H. 1877a. On Tumuli near Guildford. Manuscript report held by Salisbury and South Wiltshire Museum (Pitt-Rivers papers P40). Transcribed and published on the Excavating Pitt-Rivers blog: http://excavatingpittrivers.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/on-tumuli-near-guildford-surrey.html [CG [Excav. PR] 21/10/2013] R-7a: Sections of the Merrow Down tumuli (held at Salisbury and South Wiltshire Museum) [CG [Excav. PR] 21/10/2013] R-7b: Watercolour of 1884.121.11 (held at Salisbury and South Wiltshire Museum) [CG [Excav. PR] 21/10/2013] Illustrated in colour as Figure 12.4 on page 267 of 'Post-Roman Britain', by Eleanor Standley, Dan Hicks and Alice Forward, in World Archaeology at the Pitt Rivers Museum: A Characterization, edited by Dan Hicks and Alice Stevenson (Oxford: Archaeopress, 2013), pp. 262-278. Caption (same page): 'Figure 12.4 Early medieval tanged iron knife recovered during Pitt-Rivers' excavations at Merrow Down, Surrey in May 1877, and recorded as 'found in barrow no. 3 with burnt lady' (PRM Accession Number 1884.121.11).'. [MJD 24/06/2014]

Search terms: Tool, Weapon, Death, Religion, Knife, Grave Good