Abstract
A Late La Tène Spear-head from the Thames.—In Man for September, Mr. T. D. Kendrick describes and figures a remarkable ornamented iron spear-head found in the Thames at London and now in the possession of Captain Ball. It is 11.8 inches long and has a broad triangular blade with rounded base angles. The wings are flat; but the blade itself is bisected on each face by a raised mid-rib, sharp-edged and triangular in section. This extends from tip to base, where it merges into the socket, which is faceted for a short length and then runs on round-sectioned. The forging is excellent and shows no trace of the annealed joint. Bronze plates are affixed to the lower part of the wings on each face—thin strips of metal with bevelled edges about 3½ inches long. They are applied as four separate pieces, being fastened in position by a number of neat little pins, of which two have the heads traversed by the ornament on the plates. No two of the plates are alike, but each is cut into a sinuous form with eccentric leaf-shaped protuberances, and each is ornamented with an incised design in which a discended S-shaped scroll, set off against a basket-work background, is the principal element. The pattern is not in the best tradition of this sort of work. The form of the spear-head would suffice to date it to the La Tène period. A large number of decorated spearheads have been found abroad and some in Ireland. Yet this single English specimen is unique among all decorated La Tène spear-heads because of the manner of its ornament. Other spear-heads are decorated by inlay or by incised or openwork devices in the iron blade, but here it is in the form of applied plates of a different metal. In richness of decoration it is surpassed by a specimen from Hungary and one from Switzerland; but it is much later than either. It belongs to the middle of the first century A.D., and must be regarded as an important document for the study of ‘Celtic’ art in Britain, marking the complete disappearanoe of the fluid elegance of the earlier foliate design.
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Research Items. Nature 128, 586–587 (1931). https://doi.org/10.1038/128586a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/128586a0