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Spearhead: O.56-1879

Object information

Current Location: In storage

Maker(s)

Maker: Unknown

Entities

Categories

Description

Leaf shaped steel blade of almost flat section, with a sharp medial ridge bordered by broad fullers, much narrower fullers bordering the edges, leaving low rounded ribs in relief, and a slightly reinforced point. The blade is attached to a separate socket, has a wing-like section at the top, and has small dags at the base. Its seam is open, and it is secured to the blade by a broad, rounded reinforced decorated with double incised lines, and with a broad, low slightly cog-like reinforce at the base. The panel below the wings is decorated with incised foliage, there is a similar band of incised foliage between bands of ring and dot within incised lines below the first reinforce, and similar ornament at the bottom. The dags at the base are somewhat damaged. A fragment of the original wooden haft survives. The blade and upper moulding have been polished bright, the remainder of the socket left uncleaned

Legal notes

Given by Robert Taylor, MA

Measurements and weight

Blade Length: 23.5 cm
Blade Width Max: 2.6 cm
Overall Length: 47.5 cm
Socket Length: 21.5 cm
Weight: 284 g

Acquisition and important dates

Method of acquisition: Given (1879) by Taylor, Robert, MA

Dating

17th Century, Late
Circa 1660 CE - 1700 CE

Note

Compare the cog-like reinforces of O.47-1879 and O.45-1879, not exactly the same, but from a similar workshop. Also the spearhead from the Government Museum Chennai, no. 2235 (see documentation Elgood 2004), for which Elgood suggests a late 17th century date

Components of the work

Blade composed of steel

Inscription or legends present

  • Text: 56
  • Method of creation: Inscribed
  • Type: Tag

References and bibliographic entries

Identification numbers

Accession number: O.56-1879
Primary reference Number: 158366
Stable URI

Audit data

Created: Saturday 6 August 2011 Updated: Tuesday 25 February 2020 Last processed: Friday 8 December 2023

Associated departments & institutions

Owner or interested party: The Fitzwilliam Museum
Associated department: Applied Arts

Citation for print

This record can be cited in the Harvard Bibliographic style using the text below:

The Fitzwilliam Museum (2024) "Spearhead" Web page available at: https://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/id/object/158366 Accessed: 2024-03-29 09:10:35

Citation for Wikipedia

To cite this record on Wikipedia you can use this code snippet:

{{cite web|url=https://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/id/object/158366 |title=Spearhead |author=The Fitzwilliam Museum|accessdate=2024-03-29 09:10:35|publisher=The University of Cambridge}}

API call for this record

To call these data via our API (remember this needs to be authenticated) you can use this code snippet:

https://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/api/v1/objects/object-158366

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