A nearly similar blade from Oefeli[875] (Lac de Bienne) is said to be of copper.
In Fig. 295 is shown a blade with, five rivets, from an interment at Homington,[876] near Salisbury, which, is now in the British Museum. One side is still highly polished, with an almost mirror-like lustre. The mark of the hilt is very distinct upon it.
—— Fig. 295.—Homington. ½ ————— Fig. 296.—Idmiston. ½
One of more pointed form, and with a more V-shaped notch in the hilt, was found with an unburnt body in a cairn at North Charlton, Northumberland, and is in the Greenwell Collection in the British Museum. The portion is broken off in which were the rivets.
Occasionally the surface of these thin blades is ornamented by engraved or punched patterns. The decoration usually consists of converging bands of parallel lines. The example given as Fig. 296 was found in a barrow at Idmiston, near Salisbury, and is now preserved in the Blackmore Museum. In one found in Dow Low,[877] Derbyshire, shown in Fig. 297, there are three parallel lines on either side which meet in chevron. This blade has two rivets.
In a barrow near Maiden Castle,[878] Dorchester, opened by Mr. Sydenham, there lay in the midst of the ashes two bronze daggers. One (4 inches) has two lines engraved on it, forming a chevron parallel with the edges; the other (5½ inches) is described as “curiously wrought, chased, and gilt.” This latter, to judge from Mr. Warne’s engraving, has a slight projecting rib along the middle of the blade, between two others converging to meet it near the point. The space on each side of the central rib appears to be decorated by small circular indentations.
One from another barrow in Dorsetshire[879] has a treble chevron on the blade and a straight transverse groove between two ridges just above the hilt.
A small blade found in an urn at Wilmslow,[880] Cheshire, seems to have a single chevron upon it.
A dagger from a tumulus at Hewelinghen (Pas de Calais), and now in the museum at Boulogne, is of this character. It has double lines to the chevron and four rivet-holes.