BEFORE passing to the leaf-shaped swords, which would seem naturally to follow in order after the blades last described, it will be well to notice two sets of weapons which, though in many respects identical with daggers, may in the one case have served as spear-heads, and in the other most probably as the blades of battle-axes or halberds. To the first of these two classes the term “Arreton Down type” has been conventionally applied, as it was in the hoard found at that place that the largest proportion of such weapons occurred; and, indeed, until that discovery the type appears to have been unknown. The tanged blades are still rare, but have now been found in several other places besides the Isle of Wight. The centre of the blade is usually thick and strong, showing a central ridge and having the sides more or less decorated with flutings or lines where the metal is reduced in thickness. The tang, unlike that of the daggers described at the beginning of the last chapter, is long and narrow, and tapers away from the blade. At its end is a hole for a rivet or pin. In one instance a ferrule was found upon the blade, as will be seen in Fig. 324. This figure is copied from that in the _Archæologia_[959] which is taken from a drawing made in 1737 by Sir Charles Frederick. Upon the ferrule are a number of raised bosses in imitation of rivets, but there seems to be no rivet-hole in the ferrule itself, though there is one in the end of the tang of the blade with the rivet still in it. Accounts of the discovery of this and other weapons at Arreton Down, near Newport, in the Isle of Wight, were communicated to the Society of Antiquaries in the years 1735 and 1737, and the latter has been printed by Mr. A. W. Franks, F.R.S.[960] At least sixteen articles were found in a marl-pit, and they are said to have been arranged in a regular order. Of these, nine were of this tanged type, but varying in details. [Illustration: Fig. 324.—Arreton Down. ½] [Illustration: Fig. 325.—Stratford-le-Bow. ½] One (Fig. 328) was provided with a socket; two were dagger blades, already mentioned (one of which is given in Fig. 306), and four were flanged celts, like Fig. 8, but varying in size. Six specimens from this hoard are now in the British Museum. Mr. Franks, in the paper already mentioned, regards these tanged weapons as spear-heads, and is I think right in so doing; the blades, however, present such close analogies with the daggers from the Wiltshire barrows, and the socketed variety (Fig. 328) is so dagger-like in character, that it is hard to speak with any degree of confidence upon this point.