Axeheads (back)

These bronze axeheads were found in 1990 in a hoard of late Bronze Age material at St Andrews in Fife. The hoard contained over 200 tools, weapons and ornaments as well as seven amber beads and three cannel coal bangles. It was buried between 950 and 750 BC.

The form of the axeheads is typical of those found in northern Britain during this period. Wooden handles would have fitted into the axeheads' sockets. Thongs could also have attached the axeheads to the sockets through the loops.

In the days before banks and safe-deposit boxes burial was an effective protection against theft. But not all hoard finds can be explained in this way. Some hoards appear never to have been intended to be recovered. They may have been buried as offerings to the gods. In the case of St Andrews we shall probably never know exactly how or why the hoard came to be deposited at this spot.

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