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Details
LOT 1061
Viking Age Iron Bearded Axehead
9TH CENTURY A.D.
5 in. (359 grams, 12.4 cm).
Hand-forged with triangular-section narrow blade widening to a broad bevelled edge with square chin, socket with lateral flanges and rounded panel to the rear. [No Reserve]
Provenance
From the private collection of a London gentleman, from his grandfather's collection formed before the early 1970s.
Literature
Cf. Thunmark-Nylén, L., Die Wikingerzeit Gotlands I.: Abbildungen der Graubfunde, Stockholm, 1992, pl.13, item 14.
Footnotes
The axe seems to belong to the typology of Viking side axes of Wheeler type B (Wheeler III / Rygh 559). Usually these bearded axeheads (skeggöks) had a longer edge, designed to split tree trunks into planks and beams, or heads in two parts. Some of the bearded axes were known as halfÞynna öx, the neck on such 'half thin axe' was thinly forged, to make it lighter.
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