The Little Thetford flesh-hook is a late

Bronze-Age The Bronze Age is a historic period, lasting approximately from 3300 BC to 1200 BC, characterized by the use of bronze, the presence of writing in some areas, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the second prin ...

(1150950 BC) artefact discovered in 1929 in

Little Thetford Little Thetford is a small village in the civil parish of Thetford, south of Ely in Cambridgeshire, England, about by road from London. The village is built on a boulder clay island surrounded by flat fenland countryside, typical of settle ...

, near

Ely Ely or ELY may refer to: Places Ireland * Éile, a medieval kingdom commonly anglicised Ely * Ely Place, Dublin, a street United Kingdom * Ely, Cambridgeshire, a cathedral city in Cambridgeshire, England ** Ely Cathedral Ely Cathedral, formal ...

Cambridgeshire Cambridgeshire (abbreviated Cambs.) is a Counties of England, county in the East of England, bordering Lincolnshire to the north, Norfolk to the north-east, Suffolk to the east, Essex and Hertfordshire to the south, and Bedfordshire and North ...

, England. A

flesh-hook 270px, The Dunaverney flesh-hook, Bronze Age Ireland Flesh-hook is a term for a variety of archaeological artifacts which have metal hooks and a long handle, or socket for a lost wooden handle. Though the term may be applied to objects from other ...

is a metal hook with a long handle used to pull meat out of a pot or hides out of tan-pits. This particular find is one of 32 other such

archaeologically Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscap ...

significant finds, scatters, and excavations within of Little Thetford.

Discovery

The artefact was found by a Mr. Dresser, whilst digging a

ditch A ditch is a small to moderate divot created to channel water. A ditch can be used for drainage, to drain water from low-lying areas, alongside roadways or fields, or to channel water from a more distant source for plant irrigation. Ditches ar ...

on reclaimed fenland, at

in 1929. Discovered about down, it consisted of two-parts, connected by the remains of a wooden shaft. The wood remains have not survived; a contemporary wooden shaft has been added by the British Museum for display purposes. The artefact is in the

British Museum The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...

though is not, as of 2012, on display. Within of Little Thetford, there have been 33 finds of various kinds over the years, such as flints from the

Neolithic The Neolithic period, or New Stone Age, is an Old World archaeological period and the final division of the Stone Age. It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide-ranging set of developments that appear to have arisen independently in several parts ...

era through to a

windmill A windmill is a structure that converts wind power into rotational energy using vanes called windmill sail, sails or blades, specifically to mill (grinding), mill grain (gristmills), but the term is also extended to windpumps, wind turbines, and ...

of the late

Medieval In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the Post-classical, post-classical period of World history (field), global history. It began with t ...

period.

Uses

The word

is relatively modern. The

OED The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' (''OED'') is the first and foundational historical dictionary of the English language, published by Oxford University Press (OUP). It traces the historical development of the English language, providing a com ...

gives the origin of the word as 1325 AD, and defines it as ''a metal hook with a long stail, used to pull hides out of tan-pits'' or as ''a hook for pulling meat from the pot''. It may also have been used as a tool to prod animals. The use of this flesh-hook in the

Bronze Age The Bronze Age is a historic period, lasting approximately from 3300 BC to 1200 BC, characterized by the use of bronze, the presence of writing in some areas, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the second pri ...

can only be speculated.

Construction

The metal used in the construction is a

bronze Bronze is an alloy consisting primarily of copper, commonly with about 12–12.5% tin and often with the addition of other metals (including aluminium, manganese, nickel, or zinc) and sometimes non-metals, such as phosphorus, or metalloids such ...

alloy An alloy is a mixture of chemical elements of which at least one is a metal. Unlike chemical compounds with metallic bases, an alloy will retain all the properties of a metal in the resulting material, such as electrical conductivity, ductility, ...

, found to be typical of the late

. The material was analysed using

ICP ICP may refer to: Business * ICP srl, Italian manufacturer of automotive equipment and kit aircraft *Ideal customer profile: see Qualified prospect * International Comfort Products Corporation, US air conditioning and heating company * Indonesi ...

AES and contained (approximately) 85% copper, 10% tin, 3% lead, and 2% impurities; although the constituents of the individual parts varied around these figures. From an analysis of 36 other Bronze-Age

s known to be in existence, the assembled length of hook-part, butt-end, and missing wood part is speculated to be . The artefact was manufactured by

casting Casting is a manufacturing process in which a liquid material is usually poured into a mold, which contains a hollow cavity of the desired shape, and then allowed to solidify. The solidified part is also known as a ''casting'', which is ejected ...

, using a mould in a

lost-wax Lost-wax casting (also called "investment casting", "precision casting", or ''cire perdue'' which has been adopted into English from the French, ) is the process by which a duplicate metal sculpture (often silver, gold, brass, or bronze) i ...

(cire perdue) process.

Dating

The British Museum dates the artefact within the

1150950 BC. The Cambridgeshire Historic Environment Record database dates the artefact as late Bronze Age 1000–701 BC.

References

External links