On this day...10th August

It is quite usual for animal bone to form a huge proportion of our bulk finds each season but what surprised us in 2011 was the discovery of several large pieces of whale bone! This was a first for Sedgeford and we are assuming that part of the animal was transported, probably via the river, from one of the nearby beaches.

Animal bone, once it has been modified and made into something else, becomes a small find rather than a bulk find. This is the case with this handle, likely from a knife. It is probably a sheep’s tibia that has been shaped until it was square in cross-section and highly polished. As you can see there is a regular pattern of drilled holes in sets of three. This pattern was the same on all four sides but this was the ‘best’ side. Whether the handle's creator got better with practice and this was the final side to be decorated, or whether this was the first and he got less enthusiastic and allowed the pattern to become more haphazard is anyone’s guess. It was found by Simon Locke in Trench 22 on Chalkpit Field in 2016.