East Riding Museums

Find RF40, an iron sword in a straight mouthed copper alloy scabbard. The front of the scabbard is decorated with six horizontal bands. There is a cast copper alloy scabbard chape. The iron tang and minerally preserved hilt grip (RF23, originally either of wood or horn), was found next to the sword, but broken off. L:11cm. A further small fragment of tang (RF53), found in sieved soil, joins to this. L:1.6cm. Context 1003. Part of the South Cave Weapons Cache of 5 late Iron Age swords/scabbards and 33 iron spearheads, found by metal detectorists in September 2002. The site was subsequently excavated by Humber Field Archaeology and York Archaeological Trust. The cache was buried in a pit, dug into a pre-existing boundary ditch of a late Iron age/early Romano-British settlement. The finds date to about 70AD.