It certainly is very old ... but what is it ?

[M ELEY]

Alan has some excellent points, particularly about the length of the point versus the short socket and of course, the whole tool angle. I don't think we'll ever absolutely pin this one down because it IS a blacksmith made item of simple crude construction. I will still point out that crude iron made knives, swords, spear heads, and lances are so commonly found in Colonial Span weapons as to be common-place. Impractical as a lance for charging on horseback? Yes, but not if it were made as a one-shot defensive tool. Think of some of the Jhadpur armoury weapons just lying around in case of a seige. Remember the old Brown Bess bayonets fitted with a wood-turned handle issued to senior/retired British soldiers in WW2 to use in case of homeland invasion. We've all seen artifacts made from car springs and barrel hoops. I don't think this is much different. Many of the American colonial pikes had sockets like this (way too short for anything less than poking some bloke shimmying up the side of your ship). Now, we can also very easily take the other argument and say it was purely a tool based on the flat edge and crudeness. If it were my piece, I would refuse to classify it, but call it a tool/weapon. After all, this describes every Igorot head axe, every colonial spike axe/tomahawk and every adze I've ever seen. Who knows, perhaps someday someone will find a whole warehouse full of these in Bolivia marked "Craftsman"