Bronze socketed axe
A cast bronze axe head with a hollow socket for the haft — the characteristic tool of the later Bronze Age.
The socketed axe is a bronze axe head cast with a hollow socket into which a wooden haft is fitted, rather than being lashed to the outside of the wood. It is a design that only makes sense in a cast metal: it uses less metal than a solid head, and it grips the haft far better.
It is a good example of a form determined by its material. You cannot make a socketed axe from stone, and there is little point making one from iron, which is forged rather than cast. The object is specific to the technology that produced it.
Cultural significance
Socketed axes are among the commonest surviving Bronze Age metal objects in northern Europe, frequently found in hoards of many examples together. Some were never sharpened and could not have been used, which has led to sustained debate about whether they served as a store of value or as offerings rather than as tools.
How we know: checked recently · only one source, so there is nothing to cross-check it against · stated directly by the source.
How this connects
Where a connection has been confirmed by an outside reference, that reference is named beside it.
is made using
- Bronze — alloy · cast in a two-piece mould with a core, which is what bronze does better than the copper it replaced
is associated with
- Bronze Age — event
is commonly confused with
- Hand axe — object · a million years and two materials apart: one is a flaked stone core held in the hand, the other a cast bronze head on a haft
Sources
- Material WorldOur own writing