East Riding Museums

Find RF41, an iron sword in a straight-mouthed copper alloy scabbard. Campanulate hilt guard. Repousse decoration on the front of the scabbard, of lyre form. A copper alloy scabbard chape of lipped form. Found at right angles to swords 40 & 41 was a fragment of scabbard (RF39), which had been detached from scabbard 41 by ploughing. L:12.4cm. There are some traces on the inside of the scabbard that suggest it may have had a leather lining. 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.