War Hammer (Czákany), with a square, stepped, hammer-head with square face and moulded neck, balanced by a long, slightly drooping, fluted beak. Short, socket straps with shaped edges at top and bottom. Octagonal wooden haft covered with leather and studded with groups of brass-headed nails (probably modern). The haft projects beyond the head at the top, and is finished at top and bottom with a steel cap with a small button in the centre.
Polish or Hungarian, first half of the 17th century.
This type of hammer is called Csákányfocos by J. Szendrei (1896, no. 6681). J. Kalmár describes a similar hammer as Hungarian, using the name Czakany (Regi Magyar fegyverek, 1971, pp. 34-7, fig. 50). On the other hand M. Pasziewicz describes A977 as Polish (J.A.A.S., VIII, no. 3, 1975, pp. 225-8, pI. LXXXIV B). A comparable hammer is in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford (G. M. Wilson in A. MacGregor, 1983, pp. 204-6, no. 92, pI. LXVI). A comparable hammer head, said to have been found locally, is at Dyrham, Gloucestershire. There is a detached head of very similar form in the Henderson Collection, Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.