V. CELTS GROUND AT THE EDGE ONLY…

V. CELTS GROUND AT THE EDGE ONLY

The implements belonging to this class testify to a greater amount of pains having been bestowed upon them than on those which have been chipped only; yet the labour in grinding them has been far less than with those which are polished over their entire surface. There are some which occupy an intermediate position between those ground at the edge only, and those which are polished all over; inasmuch as not only has their edge been sharpened by grinding, but the principal asperities both of the sides and faces have been removed in a similar manner, yet without polishing anything like the entire surface. These may be classed among polished celts; and, indeed, any distinction that can be drawn between celts partly and wholly polished is imaginary rather than real, as it is only a difference in degree. The specimens of this class which I have selected for engraving present, as a rule, some slight peculiarity either in form or in other respects.

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The first of these, Fig. 30, is remarkable for the extremely rude manner in which it is chipped out, and for the small portion of its surface which is polished. So rude, indeed, is it, that an inexperienced eye would hardly accept it as being of human workmanship. The edge, however, has unmistakeably been ground. Possibly the implement may have been chipped out from a fragment of a larger polished celt, of which the edge had been preserved. It is of flint, quite whitened by exposure, and was found by myself upon the Downs, near Eastbourne, on September 12th, 1852, being the first stone implement I ever discovered. I have since found a similar but larger celt in a field of my own at Abbot’s Langley, Herts. It is 4 1∕2 inches long, and the edge has been intentionally blunted by grinding, so that it was possibly a battle-axe. I have some other specimens which appear to have been made from fragments of larger polished celts. One of these, found near Icklingham, 2 1∕4 inches wide and 2 3∕4 inches long, is almost pear-shaped in outline, but truncated at the butt, where it is about an inch wide. I have several similar implements from France and Belgium, the butt-ends of which are battered, as if they had been used as wedges. |88|

The original of Fig. 31 is curious in another aspect, it having been shaped, with the exception of the edge, entirely by nature, and not by art. The tendency of certain kinds of flint to split up into more or less regular prisms by assuming a sort of columnar structure, much like that which is exhibited by starch in drying, is well known. The maker of this implement has judiciously selected one of these prisms, which required no more than a moderate amount of grinding at one end to convert it into a neat and useful tool. It was found at Culford, in Suffolk, and formerly belonged to Mr. Warren, of Ixworth, but is now in my own collection.

The celt represented in Fig. 32 is also mine, and was found in the same neighbourhood, near Mildenhall. It is pointed and entirely unpolished at the butt-end, which, had that part only been preserved, would have had all the appearance of being the point of an implement of the Palæolithic period. It is, however, ground to a thin circular edge at the broad end. Another, nearly similar, from Burwell Fen, is in the Museum of the Cambridge Antiquarian Society. I have another, rather straighter at the edge, but even more sharply pointed at the butt, from Reach Fen, and several others from the Eastern Counties. One[312] of the three celts found in the Upton Lovel Barrow was of much the same shape, only larger and more rudely chipped. It had also apparently more of its surface polished. General Pitt Rivers has a large Indian celt of this character, but broader in its |89| proportions, found in Bundelcund. It is not of flint. I have smaller specimens from Madras, but more like Fig. 33.

Approaching to the form of Fig. 32, but rather broader at the edge and more truncated at the butt, where a cavity in the flint has interfered with the symmetry, is another celt in my own collection, found at Sawdon, in the North Riding of Yorkshire, and engraved as Fig. 33. It has been skilfully rubbed to a sharp segmental edge, but no labour has been wasted in grinding any portion of the face beyond what was necessary to produce the edge. Towards the butt-end some few of the facets and projections are, however, highly polished, but by friction only, as the surface is still uneven and not ground down. These polished patches, as has been pointed out by Professor Steenstrup, are probably significant of the blade having been mounted in a horn or wooden socket, though not so firmly but that there was some little motion in it, so that the resulting friction produced the polish. A celt of this class, formed of ochreous flint, with a semicircular edge, the sides straight, and partly ground away, is in the Fitch Collection at Norwich. It is 6 1∕2 inches long, and was found at Martlesham Hill, Suffolk. A good example found in 1880 at Hinchcombe,[313] Gloucestershire has been figured. Another, about 9 inches long, rounded at the sides, and partly ground on the faces, was found in a barrow at Hartland, Devon, and is preserved in the museum at Truro. One of black flint, 4 1∕8 inches long, was found at Pen-y-bonc,[314] Holyhead Island, in 1873. It is curved, and may have been used as an adze. Small specimens of this form are occasionally found in Suffolk. In Yorkshire, they occur of still smaller size. In the Greenwell Collection is one from Willerby Wold, 2 inches long and nearly triangular in outline; and another with an oblique edge from Helperthorpe, 2 1∕8 inches long. One from Ganton Wold, 2 3∕4 inches long, has a straight edge. I have a very rude specimen from the Yorkshire Wolds about 1 3∕4 inches long, 1 3∕4 inches wide at the edge, and 1 inch at the butt. They occur also in Scotland. The late Dr. John Stuart showed me a sketch of a flint celt of this type, 4 3∕4 inches long, from Bogingarry, Old Deer, Aberdeenshire. Another, 1 5∕8 inches by 1 inch, was found near Dundee.[315] One very like |90| the figure was found at Urquhart,[316] Elgin. I have a celt of this character (4 inches), from the neighbourhood of Mons, in Belgium.

Another much more elongated form, but still belonging to the same class of implements, is that represented by Fig. 34. The original is of grey flint, and was found at Weston, Norfolk. The grinding is continued farther along the body of the implement than in the former examples, especially on one of the faces, and the asperities of the sides have in places been removed by the same process. About half-way along the blade, some of the facets have been polished by friction.

In the Greenwell Collection is a beautiful specimen, 8 1∕4 inches long, 2 inches broad at edge, and 3∕4 inch at butt, and nowhere more than 5∕8 inch thick. It is most skilfully chipped, and the grinding extends only 1∕2 inch back from the edge. The sides have been made straight by |91| grinding, and are slightly rounded. It was found at Kinlochew, Ross-shire. Another in the same collection, 9 1∕4 inches long, was found at Kilham, in the East Riding of Yorkshire. I have seen one 8 inches long from Leighton Buzzard. One of the same length from Fordoun,[317] Kincardineshire, has been figured.

I have two shorter specimens, about the same breadth as Fig. 34 at the cutting edge, from the neighbourhood of Bury St. Edmunds and Mildenhall. They do not, however, present any of the polished marks. The sides of both have to a certain extent been made straight by grinding. One of these with the natural crust of the flint still left at the butt-end is shown in Fig. 35. I have several others from the Eastern Counties, and two of much the same form from Carnaby Moor and King’s Field, near Bridlington. The Greenwell Collection has specimens found at Woodhall, near Harbottle, Northumberland, and at Stanford, Norfolk. The latter is sharp at the butt. Others have been found in the Thames, and are now in the British Museum. I have a note of one 6 inches long from the Priory Valley, Dover.

Others from Debenham, Suffolk, from Dunham, Norfolk, and from Thorpe, are in the Norwich Museum.

One of white flint 4 1∕2 inches long, with square butt, made straight by grinding, and with the faces chipped in such a manner as to form a central ridge, so that the grinding at the edge shows an almost triangular facet, was found at Kirby Underdale, and is in the Greenwell Collection. The sides in this specimen curve slightly inward.

The two celts found by the late Mr. Bateman, in Liff’s Low,[318] near Biggin, in company with a curious cup, a stag’s horn hammer, and numerous worked flints, including two flakes ground at the edge, were of this form and character. The larger of the two is about 7 inches long.

Mr. Cunnington, F.G.S., has a small celt of this kind from Morton, near Dorchester. Messrs. Mortimer, of Driffield, have specimens of the same class. One of these (4 3∕4 inches) is from Garton, Yorkshire; another similar, but less taper (4 3∕8 inches), is from Lady Graves, near Fimber, where also a ruder celt of the same character was found. I have a small celt 3 inches long of the same class, from Seamer, Yorkshire. One of dark flint, slightly curved (5 1∕4 inches), found at South Slipperfield, West Linton, Peeblesshire, is preserved in the National Museum at Edinburgh.[319]

It was the cutting end of a celt of this class, sharp at the sides, and |92| ground at the edge only, which is said to have been found embedded in the skull of a Bos primigenius,[320] in a fen near Cambridge. The skull and implement are in the Woodwardian Museum. In the Fitch Collection is a small flint adze of this character, but rather narrower, and very much thinner in proportion. It is 4 1∕2 inches long, about 1 3∕8 inches broad, and only 1∕4 inch thick. It is considerably curved in the direction of its length, and bears only slight traces of grinding at the edge, which is segmental. It was found at Santon Downham, Suffolk. I have two such thin adzes nearly flat (4 3∕4 and 4 1∕4 inches) from West Stow, Suffolk, and Thetford. They are both ground to a sharp edge.

A celt, in form like Fig. 35, found with flint knives and other implements in some beds of sand near York, has been figured by Mr. C. Monkman.[321] Similar implements are found in Ireland. I have two such, almost identical in form with those from Suffolk. They are both from Ulster. The same form occurs in Belgium.

One of these more adze-like implements with a considerable part of the convex face polished, was found in Reach Fen, and is shown in Fig. 35A. Fig. 84A, which is polished all over, belongs to the same class.

I have a fine bowed narrow adze (7 inches) ground at the edge only, from Hampshire.

The celt represented in Fig. 36 is of remarkable form, inasmuch as, like the unground specimen, Fig. 21, the sides expand at the butt-end. It was found in Burwell Fen, and is in the collection of the Cambridge Antiquarian Society. It is formed of chalcedonic flint, and the sharp sides are partially smoothed by grinding. It is slightly curved in the direction of its length, and may have been used as an adze. I have one of the same character (5 5∕8 inches) from Swaffham, Cambs, and another (4 3∕4 inches) from Oldbury, Ightham, given me by Mr. B. Harrison, in which the narrowing in the middle of the blade is even more conspicuous. One much like the figure, but with shorter sides (5 7∕8 inches) was found near Dundee.[322] Another smaller, and somewhat similar implement, but expanding more towards the edge and less at the butt, was found at Bridge Farm, near North Tawton, Devon, and was in the possession of Mr. W. Vicary, F.G.S., of Exeter.

A few celts expanding at the edge, and polished all over, will be subsequently described. |93|

In Fig. 37 is shown a flint celt, found near Thetford, and formerly in the collection of Mr. J. W. Flower, F.G.S. It is partially ground at the edge and on the projecting portion of one face, which is curved lengthwise. The other face is rather ogival, and much resembles that of the chipped celt from Mildenhall, Fig. 12. I have a shorter specimen of the same character from Icklingham.

Flint celts of the form of Fig. 23, but having the edge ground, frequently occur. I have specimens from Burwell Fen, Icklingham, and other places in the Eastern Counties. One was found at Stifford, near Gray’s Thurrock, Essex, 6 1∕2 inches long.[323] The late Mrs. Dickinson, of Hurstpierpoint, had another, 6 inches long, found at Pycombe Hill, Sussex. The late Mr. Durden, of Blandford, had one, now in the British Museum, from the encampment on Hod Hill, Dorsetshire. I have one or two such from the site of the ancient manufactory at Spiennes, near Mons, and others from the North of France.

The next specimen, Fig. 38, I have engraved on account of the peculiarity in its form. The butt-end, for nearly 2 1∕2 inches along it, has the sides nearly parallel, the blade then suddenly expands with a rounded shoulder, and terminates in a semicircular edge, which is neatly |94| ground, the rest of the celt being left in the state in which it was chipped out. From the form, it would appear as if this implement had been intended to be mounted by the insertion of the butt-end in a socket, like that shown in Fig. 98, so that it could be used as an axe. The axis of the butt is not quite in the same line as that of the rest of the blade. It was found at Undley Common, near Lakenheath, and is in the Greenwell Collection.

A remarkable specimen of an allied kind is shown in Fig. 38A. The edge only is ground and a flat surface has been left at the butt-end, which is almost circular. It was found on Ringwood Gore Farm, East Dean, Sussex, and was given to me by Mr. R. Hilton.

Another form, apparently intended for use as an adze, is also of rare occurrence. The specimen shown in Fig. 39 was found at Ganton, Yorkshire, and is in my own collection. It is very much more convex on one face than the other, which, indeed, is nearly flat. The grinding is confined to the edge, but some parts of the flat face are polished as if by friction.

The late Dr. John Stuart, F.S.A.Scot., showed me a sketch of a large implement of this type, and considerably bowed longitudinally, found at Bogingarry, Old Deer, Aberdeenshire. It is of flint, 4 1∕2 inches long, and 2 inches wide. |95|

Another form of adze, if such it be, remarkably flat on one face and narrow at the butt, is shown in Fig. 40. This specimen was found in Swaffham Fen, Cambridge, and is in my own collection. The flat face has been produced at a single blow, and has been left almost untouched, except where trimmed by chipping to form the edge, which, however, |96| has been rendered blunt by grinding. The sides are very minutely chipped along the angles, and there seems some possibility of the instrument having been used as a rimer or boring tool.

The celts of other materials than flint, and ground only at the edge, are of rarer occurrence than those in flint. That engraved as Fig. 41 was found at Grindale, near Bridlington. It is of felstone, and is remarkable as being so much curved in the direction of its length. I have another smaller specimen from the same place, but the blade is straight. The edge, however, is slightly gouge-like.

Mr. J. W. Brooke has a small adze of flint (2 1∕4 inches) in outline almost identical with Fig. 41. It came from near Aldbourne, Wilts.

Another of these instruments expanding towards the edge, and apparently adapted for insertion in a socket, is shown in Fig. 42. It is made of hone-stone, and the flat butt is the result of a natural joint in the stone. It was found at North Burton, in the East Riding of Yorkshire, and is in the Greenwell Collection, where is also a celt of greenstone much like Fig. 41, found in a barrow with a burnt interment on Seamer Moor, Yorkshire; and another of the same class, 3 3∕4 inches long and 2 3∕4 inches wide, also from Seamer Moor. A third specimen, rather smaller, was found in a barrow at Uncleby, Yorkshire. One of greenstone, 2 1∕2 inches long, and nearly triangular in outline, was found near Keswick, and is in the Blackmore Museum. A longer adze of greenstone, considerably curved in the blade, lay in company with various implements of flint in some sand-beds near York.[324] In the Mayer Collection at Liverpool is a celt of clay-slate, 4 inches long and ground at the edge, found at Toxteth. In the collection of the late Mr. J. F. Lucas, of Fenny Bentley Hall, near Ashbourne, were two celts (5 1∕2 and 7 inches) of the same type as Fig. 35, but more adze-like in character, and formed of felstone. They were found on Middleton Moor, and at Wormhill, near Buxton, Derbyshire.

In my own collection, is a greenstone celt with the sides sharp and nearly parallel, 7 1∕2 inches long and nearly 3 inches broad, with a semicircular edge partly ground, found at Shrub Hill, Feltwell, Norfolk. |97|

I have also a large specimen in form more resembling Fig. 23, six inches long. It is ground at the edge, which is nearly semicircular, and along the sides. It was found at Thurston, Suffolk, and is formed of a piece of tough mica-schist, with garnets[325] in it, a material, no doubt, derived from the Glacial beds of that district. Another from Troston, in the same neighbourhood, is formed from a rough fragment of micaceous grit ground to an edge at one end. In Scotland some wedge-shaped blades of granite, exhibiting traces of a very small amount of artificial adaptation, have been found. Two such, from Aberdeenshire, described as axes, have been figured.[326] The small stone celts found in Orkney,[327] though tolerably sharp at the edge, are described as rough on the sides.

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Turning to foreign countries, the discovery of flint instruments of this class, ground at the edge only, or on some small portions of their surface, is, as has already been observed, not uncommon in France and Belgium. In Denmark they are also very abundant, but the most common Danish form with a thick rectangular section does not appear to occur in Britain. Among the North American stone hatchets, many present this feature of being ground at the edge only, and the same is the case with some of the tools of the native Australians, such as that engraved in Fig. 105. A rough celt from Borneo, ground at the edge only, has been engraved by General Pitt Rivers.[328] The type also occurs in India and Japan.

In all European countries instruments of this form and character, but made of other materials than flint, are, like those entirely unground, of very rare occurrence. This rarity may arise from two causes, the one, that the tools or weapons made of these materials have not so sharp a cutting edge produced by chipping only as those formed of flint; and the second, that being usually somewhat softer than flint it required less time and trouble to grind them all over.

None of the rough celts, nor those ground at the edge only, seem so well adapted for use as hand-tools without a haft, as do some of those which are polished all over. Looking, however, at some of the rough Australian tools which are hafted with gum in a piece of skin, and thus used in the hand, it is hardly safe to express a decided opinion. The majority were, notwithstanding, in all probability, mounted with shafts after the manner of axes or adzes.

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VI. POLISHED CELTS

The last of the three classes into which, for the sake of convenience of arrangement, I have divided these instruments, viz., that comprising the celts ground or polished, not only at the edge, but over a great portion, or the whole, of their surface, is also that which is usually most numerously represented in collections of antiquities. Whether this excess in number over the other classes arises from the greater original abundance of these polished implements, or from their being better calculated to attract observation, and, therefore, more likely to be collected and preserved than those of a less finished character, is a difficult question. From my own experience it appears that, so far as relates to the implements of this character formed of flint, and still lying unnoticed on the surface of the soil, the proportions which usually obtain in collections are as nearly as may be reversed, and the chipped, or but partially polished, celts are in a large majority.

Among the polished celts there is a great range in size, and much variation in form, though the general character is in the main, uniform. The readiest method of classification is, I think, in accordance with the section presented by the middle of the blade, and I, therefore, propose to arrange them as follows:—

1. Those sharp or but slightly rounded at the sides, and presenting a pointed oval or vesica piscis in section.

2. Those with flat sides.

3. Those with an oval section.

4. Those presenting abnormal peculiarities.

In each subdivision there will, of course, be several varieties, according as the sides are more or less parallel, the blade thicker or thinner, the butt-end more or less pointed, and the edge flat, segmental, or oblique. There are also intermediate forms between these merely arbitrary classes. |99|

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I commence with those of the first sub-division, in flint. The first specimen I have engraved, Fig. 43, is a representative of a common type, and was found at Santon Downham, between Brandon and Thetford, on the borders of Norfolk and Suffolk, where, also, implements belonging to the Palæolithic Period have been discovered. The sides were originally sharp, but have been slightly rounded by grinding. The faces still show, in many places, the surface originally produced by chipping, but all projections have been ground away. |100|

I have also a larger specimen, 9 1∕2 inches long, from the same spot, and found, I believe, at the same time.

This form is of common occurrence in the Eastern Counties. I have specimens from Hilgay Fen, Norfolk (8 1∕2 inches), and Botesdale (7 inches), Hepworth (6 1∕4 inches), Undley Hall, near Lakenheath (5 3∕4 inches), in Suffolk. Some of these are ground over almost the entire face. A fine specimen (10 inches) is in the Woodwardian Museum, at Cambridge. In the Fitch Collection is a fine series of them. One of these, 9 3∕4 inches long, 3 1∕2 inches broad, and 2 1∕2 inches thick, weighing 3 lbs. 6 1∕2 ozs., was found at Narborough, near Swaffham. Another (9 1∕2 inches), weighing 3 3∕4 lbs., was found near Ipswich. A third (8 3∕4 inches) was discovered at Bolton, near Great Yarmouth. Others from 5 3∕4 inches to 7 1∕4 inches long, are from Beachamwell, Elsing, Grundisburgh, Aylsham, and Breccles, in the counties of Suffolk and Norfolk. That from the last-named locality has one face flatter than the other.

There are others in the Norwich Museum, including one from Blofield, 8 1∕2 inches long.

There are numerous specimens of this type in the British Museum. One from Barton Bendish, Norfolk, is 7 3∕4 inches long; another from Oxburgh, in the same county, 6 3∕4 inches. Others, 6 1∕2 inches and 5 1∕2 inches long, are from Market Weston and Kesgrave, Suffolk. The former is semicircular at both ends.

Mr. A. C. Savin has a well-finished example (6 1∕2 inches) from Trimingham, five miles south of Cromer.

The Rev. S. Banks, of Cottenham, had a fine specimen, of white flint, 8 1∕2 inches long, found at Stow Heath, Suffolk.

Several celts of this form found in the Fen district are in the Museum of the Cambridge Antiquarian Society. I have some from the same neighbourhood, of which two are unusually wide in proportion to their length, and in outline much resemble Fig. 48, though the edge is more semicircular. One of these is 7 inches long, 3 1∕4 inches wide, and 1 3∕4 inches thick; the other 5 1∕2 inches long, 2 3∕4 inches wide, and 1 3∕8 inches thick.

I have seen a celt presenting a narrow variety of this form, which was found at Albury, near Bishop’s Stortford. It is 6 3∕4 inches long, and 1 5∕8 inches wide, and polished all over.

The ordinary form, though apparently of most frequent occurrence in the East Anglian counties, is not by any means confined to that district. One, 8 1∕2 inches long, the sides very slightly flattened; and three others, 6 inches and 5 inches long, with the sides more rounded, all found in the Thames, at London, are in the British Museum. I have one from the Thames, at Teddington (6 inches), and three, 5 1∕4 to 6 inches long, found together in[329] Temple Mills Lane, Stratford, Essex, in 1882. In the Greenwell Collection is one 7 1∕2 inches long, found at Holme, on Spalding Moor, Yorkshire.

A flint celt of this form (6 1∕2 inches), from Reigate,[330] is in the British Museum, as well as another (6 1∕4 inches), rather oblique at the edge, found in a barrow in Hampshire, engraved in the Archæologia.[331] |101| Another, 7 inches long, was found near Egham,[332] Surrey. Two from Ash[333] near Farnham, and Wisley in the same county have been figured. I have a short, thick specimen (4 1∕2 inches) found at Eynsham, Oxfordshire. It sometimes happens that celts of this general character have one side much curved while the other is nearly straight, so that in outline they resemble Fig. 86. One such, 5 inches long and 2 inches broad in the middle, found at Bishopstow, is in the Blackmore Museum. Another (6 1∕2 inches) with the sides less curved, from Stanton Fitzwarren, Wilts, has been engraved by the Archæological Institute.[334] Two, 7 1∕4 and 5 1∕4 inches long, were found at Jarrow.[335]

The same type as Fig. 43 occasionally occurs in other materials than flint. The late Mr. James Wyatt, F.G.S., had a celt of greenstone 9 3∕4 inches long, 3 1∕2 inches wide at the edge, which is slightly oblique, found many years ago in Miller’s Bog, Pavenham, Beds. There is an engraving of it, on which it is described as of flint, but such is not the fact. The form is also sometimes found in France and Belgium. I have specimens from both countries; and one from Périgord, 8 inches long, is in the Museum at Le Puy.

Allied to this form, but usually more rounded at the sides, and flatter on the faces, are the implements of which an example is given in Fig. 44. The original was found at Coton, Cambridgeshire, in 1863. The type is the same as that of Fig. 35; but in this case the celt is polished all over. The butt-end is ground to a semicircular outline, but is, like the sides, rounded. The same is the case with some of the thicker celts of the form last described. A celt of much the same character, but with the sides apparently rather flatter (7 1∕3 inches), was found at Panshanger, Herts.[336] One (5 inches), from the Isle of Wight, is in the British Museum. The edge is oblique, as is that of another of the same length found on the South Downs, and now in the Museum at Lewes. Another of grey flint, 7 inches long, tapering from 2 inches at edge to 1 inch at butt, 7∕8 inch thick, semicircular at the butt and edge, the faces polished nearly all over, but the sides sharp and left unground, was found during the Main Drainage Works for London, and is also in the British Museum. Others have been described from Playford,[337] Suffolk (6 7∕8 inches) and Chalvey Grove,[338] Eton Wick, Bucks (7 3∕8 inches), and part of one from Croydon.[339] |102|

I have seen specimens of the same kind, with the sides straight and sharp though slightly rounded, tapering towards the butt which is semicircular, and varying in length from 5 1∕4 inches to 7 1∕4 inches, found at Alderton, Suffolk; Thorn Marsh, Yorkshire; Norton, near Malton; Westacre Hall, Norfolk; and elsewhere. The late Mr. J. Brent, F.S.A., showed me a drawing of one about 7 inches long, found at Bigborough Wood, Tunford, Canterbury.

The celt shown in Fig. 45 belongs to the same class, though it is rather flatter at the sides. It is polished over the greater part of its surface, but is on one face quite unpolished at the edge. I have engraved it as an example of the manner in which, after the edge of a hatchet of this kind had become damaged by use, a fresh edge was obtained by chipping, which, in some instances, the owner of the implement was not at the pains to sharpen by grinding.

Fig. 46 gives another variety of the flint celts with sharp or slightly rounded sides. It is slightly ridged along each face, and the faces instead of being uniformly convex to the edge have at the lower part a nearly flat facet of triangular form, the base of which forms the edge. This specimen was found at Great Bedwin, Wilts, and is in the Greenwell Collection.

I have a nearly similar specimen (6 1∕4 inches) from Northwood, Harefield, Middlesex, and another of the same length, found at Hepworth, |103| Suffolk, but the facet at the edge is not quite so distinct. A third from Abingdon is only 4 1∕2 inches long.

A long narrow chisel-like celt of this pointed oval section (8 inches) from Aberdeenshire[340] has been figured. A flint celt from Chiriqui,[341] found with a sort of flint punch and some burnishing pebbles in a grave, presumed to be that of one of the native workers in gold, is remarkably like Fig. 46 in form.

In the Fitch Collection is a large thick specimen (9 5∕8 inches) found at Heckingham Common, Norfolk, and a shorter, broader one with a faceted edge, from Pentney. Another of flint (6 1∕2 inches) with the sides much rounded, but with a similar facet at the edge, was found at Histon, Cambs, and belonged to the late Rev. S. Banks.

It seems probable that these instruments when first made did not exhibit the facet at the edge, but that it has resulted from repeated grinding as the edge became injured by wear.

A celt, apparently of this section, but more truncated at the butt, and with a narrow facet running along the centre of the face, was found in Llangwyllog,[342] Anglesey. It is not of flint but of “white magnesian stone.”

Fig. 47 exhibits a beautiful implement of a different character, and of a very rare form, inasmuch as it expands towards the edge. It is of ochreous-coloured flint polished all over, and is in the Greenwell Collection. It was found at Burradon, Northumberland, and in outline much resembles that from Gilmerton, Fig. 76, but this latter has the sides flat and a cutting edge at each end.

A celt of similar form, but only 6 1∕2 inches long, found at Cliff Hill, is in the Museum at Leicester. Four flint hatchets, found at Bexley, Kent, seem from the description given of them to be nearly of this type.[343] |104|

A few specimens of this form, both unground and ground merely at the edge, have already been mentioned, and specimens engraved, as Figs. 21 and 36. Hatchets expanding towards the edge are of more common occurrence in Denmark than in this country, though even there they are rather rare when the expansion is well-defined.

In the British Museum is a magnificent celt of this section, but in outline like Fig. 77. It is ground over nearly the whole of its surface, but the edge at each end has only been chipped out. It is made of some felspathic rock, and is no less than 14 5∕8 inches in length. It was found near Conishead Priory, Lancashire.

The next specimens that I shall describe are also principally made of other materials than flint.

Fig. 48, in my own collection, is of porphyritic greenstone, and was found at Coton, Cambridgeshire. It is polished all over, equally convex on both faces, and has the sides rather more rounded than most of those of nearly similar section in flint. The butt is rather sharper than the sides. I have an analogous implement, found at Nunnington, Yorkshire, but with the sides straighter and rather more converging towards the butt. Others have been found in the same district.

Other specimens made of greenstone have been found in the Fens, some of which are in the Museum of the Cambridge Antiquarian Society.

Some “stone” celts from Kate’s Bridge[344] and Digby Fen have been figured in Miller and Skertchly’s “Fenland.” One (7 inches) of greenstone, and apparently of this type, was found at Hartford,[345] Hunts, and is now in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford.

In the Newcastle Museum is a compact greenstone celt of this character (5 3∕4 inches) with the edge slightly oblique, found at Penrith Beacon, Cumberland. Some celts of the same general character have been found in Anglesea.

Implements of this class are frequently more tapering at the butt than the one shown in the figure. I have several such from the Cambridge Fens, and have seen an example from Towcester. One of flint (4 inches), so much rounded at the edge as to be almost oval in outline, found near Mildenhall, is in the Christy Collection. One of greenstone (4 1∕4 inches) was found at Wormhill, Buxton, Derbyshire.

Fig. 49, of dark-grey whin-stone, is of much the same character, but has an oblique cutting edge. The butt-end is ground to a blunted |105| curve. The original is in the Greenwell Collection, and was dug up in draining at Ponteland, Northumberland. Another, in the same collection, similar, but much rougher (6 inches) was found at Halton Chesters, in the same county. I have one of the same kind (6 5∕8 inches) found near Raby Castle, Durham.

A flint hatchet of nearly the same form, 4 1∕2 inches long, was found at Kempston, near Bedford. The Earl of Ducie, F.R.S., has another of flint (5 inches) from Bembridge, Isle of Wight. A celt, from Andalusia, of this character, but with the edge straighter, has been figured.[346]

The celt engraved in Fig. 50 is likewise in the Greenwell Collection, and was found at Fridaythorpe, in the East Riding of Yorkshire. It is formed of green hone-stone. Another, similar but thicker, and having the sides more convergent and the edge less oblique, was found at the same place and is in the same collection, in which also is the fragment of a larger implement of the same class from Amotherby, near Malton, Yorkshire. With these is another (4 3∕4 inches) which was found in a barrow with a burnt interment on Seamer Moor, Yorkshire. It is apparently of clay-slate which has become red by burning with the body.

Messrs. Mortimer have one of this form in greenstone (5 3∕8 inches) found near Malton, and also one in flint (4 1∕8 inches) found near Fimber. |106|

I have a well-finished celt of hone-stone, rather thicker proportionally than that figured (5 5∕8 inches), probably found in Cumberland, it having formed part of the Crosthwaite Collection at Keswick. In the Greenwell Collection is another of basalt, with straight sides, tapering from 2 3∕4 inches at edge to 1 3∕4 at butt, 9 1∕2 in length, and 1 3∕4 thick, from a peat moss at Cowshill-in-Weardale, Durham.

A thin, flat form of celt, still presenting the same character of section, is represented in Fig. 51. The original is formed of a hard, nearly black clay-slate, and was found at Oulston, in the North Riding of Yorkshire. Like many others which I have described, it is in the Greenwell Collection.

One of flint like Fig. 51 (5 inches) was found at Shelley,[347] Suffolk.

A celt of greenstone (4 3∕4 inches), of the same character but thicker and with straighter sides, from Newton, Aberdeenshire, is in the National Museum at Edinburgh, where is also another, in outline more like the figure, but broader at the butt-end, and with one side somewhat flattened. It is 4 3∕8 long, and was found at Redhall, near Edinburgh.

Some Irish celts, formed of different metamorphic rocks, present the same forms as those of Figs. 48 to 51. As a rule, however, the sides of Irish specimens are more rounded.

Fig. 52 represents an exquisitely polished celt, of a mottled, pale |107| green colour, found in Burwell Fen, Cambridge, and, through the kindness of Mr. Marlborough Pryor, now in my own collection. The material appears to be a very hard diorite; and as both faces are highly polished all over, the labour bestowed in the manufacture of such an instrument must have been immense. It is somewhat curved lengthways, and on the inner face is a slight depression, as if, in chipping it out, one of the lines of fracture had run in too far; but even this depression is polished, and no trace of the original chipped surface remains. The point is quite sharp, and the sides are only in the slightest degree rounded.

A beautiful example of the kind is said to have been found in a barrow near Stonehenge.[348] Another of a green-grey colour (6 1∕2 inches) was found at Lopham Ford, near the source of the Waveney, and was submitted to me in 1884, by the late Mr. T. E. Amyot, of Diss.

The late Mr. J. W. Flower, F.G.S., bequeathed to me a somewhat larger specimen of the same character, found at Daviot, Inverness. It is slightly broken at the pointed butt, but must have been about 8 inches long and 3 5∕8 broad. The material may be a diorite, but perhaps more nearly approaches what the French term jadeite. In the Truro Museum is another highly polished celt of the same form, and similar material, found near Falmouth.

Mr. J. W. Brooke has a beautifully polished specimen, made of a green transparent stone, from Breamore, Salisbury. It has lost a small piece at the butt-end, but is still 8 inches long. It is only 2 5∕8 inches broad at the cutting end.

Another celt, 7 3∕4 inches long, “the edges thin, rising gradually to about the thickness of half an inch in the middle,” was found in 1791 near Hopton, Derbyshire.[349] The material is described as appearing “to be marble, of a light colour tinged with yellow, and a mixture of pale red and green veins.”

In the collection of the late Mr. J. F. Lucas was a celt of this type |108| 5 1∕2 inches long, slightly unsymmetrical in outline, owing to the cleavage of the stone. It is said to have been found near Brierlow, Buxton. The material is a green jade-like stone, but so fibrous in appearance as to resemble fibrolite.

Another, of “a fine granite stone, highly polished, 9 inches long, 4 1∕4 broad at one end, tapering to the other, its thickness in the middle 3∕4 of an inch, and quite sharp at the edges all round,” was found at Mains,[350] near Dumfries, in 1779. It was discovered in blowing up some large stones, possibly those of a dolmen, and is now in the possession of Sir R. S. Riddell, Bart., of Strontian.

Several other specimens have been found in Scotland. A beautiful celt from Berwickshire[351] is, through the kindness of the Society of |109| Antiquaries of Scotland, shown in Fig. 52A. It is made of green quartz and has the edge intentionally blunted. A smaller celt (7 1∕2 inches) was found at Cunzierton near Jedburgh[352]; another (8 inches) at Rattray,[353] Perthshire; another (8 1∕4 inches), only 3∕4 inch thick at most, near Glenluce,[354] Wigtownshire; and others (8 inches) at Aberfeldy,[355] Perthshire, and Dunfermline.[356]

Several of these highly polished jadeite celts have been found in dolmens in Brittany and there are some fine specimens in the museum at Vannes. Some of them[357] have small holes bored through them. The various types of Brittany celts have been classified by the Société Polymathique du Morbihan.[358] In the Musée de St. Germain is a specimen (unbored) 9 inches long, found near Paris,[359] as also a hoard of fifteen, originally seventeen, mostly of jadeite and fibrolite, some perforated, found at Bernon,[360] near Arzon, Morbihan, in 1893. I have one 7 1∕2 inches long from St. Jean, Châteaudun, and others 5 3∕8 to 7 inches in length, of beautiful varieties of jade-like stone, found at Eu (Seine Inférieure), Miannay, near Abbeville (Somme), and Breteuil (Oise). The two latter are rounded and not sharp at the sides. One about 6 1∕2 inches long, from the environs of Soissons, is in the museum at Lyons.

One of jade, of analogous form to these, and found near Brussels, is engraved by Le Hon.[361] Another was found at Maffles.[362]

Five specimens of the same character, of different sizes, the longest about 9 1∕2 inches in length, and the shortest about 4 inches, are said to have been found with Roman remains at Kästrich, near Gonsenheim,[363] and are preserved in the museum at Mainz. The smallest is of greenstone, and the others of chloritic albite. They are said to have been buried in a sort of leather case, arranged alternately with the pointed and broad ends downwards, and in accordance with their size.

Eight specimens from museums at Weimar, Rudolstadt, and Leipzig were exhibited at Berlin.[364] in 1880. One from Wesseling,[365] on the Rhine (8 inches), is thought to have been associated with Roman remains.

Both with the English and Continental specimens, there appears to be considerable doubt as to the exact localities whence the materials were derived from which these celts are formed.

Instruments for which such beautiful and intractable materials were selected, can hardly have been in common use; but we have not sufficient ground for arriving at any trustworthy conclusion as to the purpose for which they were intended. I have, however, a short celt, 3 1∕2 inches long, from Burwell Fen, and made of this jade-like material, which has evidently been much in use, and was once considerably longer. It appears, indeed, to be the butt-end of an instrument like Fig. 52.

A detailed account of the jade and jadeite celts in the British Museum is given in the Zeitschrift für Ethnologie.[366] |110|

It was formerly supposed that the jade of which many hatchets found in Switzerland and other European countries are made, came of necessity from the East, and theories as to the early migrations of mankind have been based upon this supposition. As a fact, jade has now been found in Europe, and notably in Styria[367] and Silesia.[368] Below[369] are given some references to comments on the sources of jade. An account of the method of working jade in Western Yun-nan is given in Anderson’s Report[370] on the Expedition to that country; and a complete and well-illustrated catalogue of objects in jade and nephrite, by Dr. A. B. Meyer, forms part of the publications of the Royal Ethnographical Museum, at Dresden, for 1883.

* * * * *

I now come to the second of the subdivisions under which I have arranged this class of implements, viz., those having the sides flattened. The flat sides, of course, taper away to a point at the cutting edge of the celts, and usually diminish much in width toward the butt-end, which is commonly ground to a semicircular blunted edge. The implements of this kind are generally very symmetrical in form.

* * * * *

I have selected a large specimen for engraving in Fig. 53. It is of grey mottled flint, ground all over to such an extent, that hardly any traces of the original chipping remain. It was found at Botesdale, Suffolk, and was formerly in the collection of Mr. Warren, of Ixworth, but is now in my own. I have another (4 3∕4 inches) from Redgrave, Suffolk, and a third (5 1∕2 inches) from Bottisham Lode, Cambs.

One of the same form, found near Stowmarket, is engraved in the Archæologia.[371] If the account there given be correct, it was 12 3∕4 inches long. A specimen from Cardiff, now in the British Museum (4 1∕2 inches), has lost a considerable portion of its original length by use, and is ground so that the edge bounds a facet on the face. The sides at the butt-end are somewhat rounded, but near the edge they are flat and 1∕4 inch wide.

A fine specimen of this character, formed of ochreous flint (9 inches), found in Swaffham Fen, Cambridgeshire, is in the Christy Collection, as well as one from Mildenhall (5 1∕2 inches), the butt-end of which is sharper than is usual.

In the Fitch Collection is a flint celt of this type, 7 1∕2 inches long and 2 1∕2 broad at the edge, which however, has been broken off. It is said to have been found in a tumulus at Swannington, Norfolk, in 1855. In the Northampton Museum is a specimen (6 inches) of ochreous flint, found at Gilsborough, Northamptonshire. The late Mr. James Wyatt, F.G.S., had a beautiful implement of this type, but narrower in proportion to its length, being 7 inches long and only 1 3∕4 wide at the edge, found in the Thames at Coway Stakes, near Egham. I have one (6 inches) from the Thames at Hampton Court. A fine specimen, 9 1∕2 inches long, and 3 wide at the edge, with the sides quite flat, but |111| less than 1∕4 inch wide, of ochreous flint, polished all over, was found at Crudwell, Wilts.

Others, in flint, have been found at Sutton, Suffolk (8 inches); Wishford, Great Bedwin, Wilts[372] (7 inches); Portsmouth;[373] Cherbury Camp, Pusey, Faringdon[374] (5 1∕2 inches long, edge faceted), and Rampton, Cambridge.[375] I have seen one (5 1∕2 inches) that was found near Loughborough. Mr. G. F. Lawrence has a fine specimen (7 5∕8 inches) from the Lea Marshes. |112|

In the National Museum at Edinburgh is one of white flint (10 inches) from Fochabers,[376] Elginshire, and another from the same place (7 1∕4 inches). They are in shape much like Fig. 61. There is another of grey flint, from Skye (7 1∕2 inches). One 5 1∕2 inches long, in the same museum, from Roxburghshire, has the middle part of the faces ground flat, so that the section is a sort of compressed octagon; the edge is nearly straight.

Much the same form occurs in other materials than flint. I have a specimen, formed of flinty clay-slate, with one side less flat than the other, 10 1∕4 inches long, 3 wide, and 1 5∕8 thick, said to have been found with four others in a cairn on Druim-a-shi, Culloden, Inverness. I have another of whin-stone (9 1∕4 inches) from Kirkcaldy, Fife.

The fine celt from Gilmerton, Fig. 76, is of the same class, but has a cutting edge at each end. Some Cumberland and Westmorland specimens partake much of this character. |113|

Implements of nearly similar form to that last described, but having the edge oblique, are also met with. That engraved in Fig. 54 was found at Lackford, Suffolk, and was formerly in the collection of Mr. Warren, of Ixworth, but is now in mine. It is of grey flint. I have another, of white flint, of the same length but a trifle narrower, and with the grinding for the edge forming more of a facet with the body of the celt. It was found in the Isle of Portland. The obliquity of the edge was no doubt intentional, and may have originated in the manner in which these hatchets were mounted with hafts. Professor Nilsson[377] has suggested that the obliquity is due to the front part of the blade being worn away in use more quickly than the back.

To this class, though very different in appearance, belongs a beautifully made celt of grey flint, in the British Museum. It is probably of English origin, though the place of finding is unknown. The sides are straight and flat, but only about 1∕16 of an inch wide, the faces equally convex and polished all over. It is 9 inches long, and tapers from 1 1∕2 inches wide at the edge, which is broken, to 5∕8 at the butt. Its greatest thickness is 1∕2 an inch. It is engraved in the Archæological Journal.[378]

Flint celts of the type of both Fig. 53 and 54 are not uncommon in France and Belgium. They are also found, though rarely, in Ireland.

The cutting end of one formed of nearly transparent quartz, and found in Egypt, is in the Museum at Geneva.

Celts with the sides flattened are of not unfrequent occurrence in other materials than flint. That figured as No. 55 is of ochreous-coloured quartzite, and was found at Dalmeny, Linlithgow. It is preserved in the National Museum at Edinburgh. The form is remarkable, as being so broad in proportion to the length. The sides are flat, but the angles they make with the faces are slightly rounded. The butt-end is rounded in both directions, and appears to have been worked with a pointed tool or pick.

Another celt, of greenstone, of much the same form but with the |114| sides more tapering, 6 inches long and 3 1∕4 wide, which was found in Lochleven[379] in 1860, is in the same museum. This latter more nearly resembles Fig. 51 in outline. A small highly-polished celt of flinty slate (2 5∕8 inches), found near Dundee,[380] has been figured. Another, more triangular in outline, 6 1∕2 inches long, was found at Barugh, Yorkshire, and is in the Greenwell Collection. I have a celt of rather narrower proportions that was found between Hitchin and Pirton, Herts. It is made of a kind of lapis lydius.

Many of the Danish greenstone celts, which are perforated at the butt, present much the same outline and section.

Stone hatchets of this character occur, though rarely, in France. I have seen one in the collection of the late M. Aymard, at Le Puy. Dr. Finlay, of Athens, had a thin, flat hatchet of this form made of heliotrope, 3 1∕2 inches long, with flat sides, found in Greece. The form occurs also in Sicily.[381]

Several celts of this type have been brought from different parts of Asia. One, of basalt, 2 inches long, wedge-shaped, found at Muquier,[382] in Southern Babylonia, is in the British Museum; and several of jade, 3 to 4 inches long, procured by Major Sladen from the province of Yun-nan in Southern China, are in the Christy Collection. By Major Sladen’s kindness, I have also a specimen. Mr. Joseph Edkins has published some notes on “Stone Hatchets in China.”[383] Others from Perak[384] have also been described.

The same form, also in jade, has been found in Assam.[385] Some from Java, in the museum at Leyden, formed of flint, present the same section, but the sides expand towards the edge. A nearly similar form occurs in Japan.[386]

Fig. 56 is of the same character as Fig. 55, but narrower at the |115| butt-end. The original is in the Greenwell Collection, and is formed of Lydian stone. It was found at Sprouston, near Kelso, Roxburghshire. Though flat at the sides along most of the blade, the section becomes oval near the butt-end.

I have a smaller example of this type in clay-slate, 3 1∕2 inches long and 1 3∕4 wide at the edge, found at Carnaby, near Bridlington. The butt-end is in this case rectangular in section. It closely resembles the flat-sided hatchets so commonly found in France. I have an Irish celt of the same form found near Armagh, and made of clay-slate. Flat-sided celts are, however, rare in Ireland.

A celt of grey flint, 4 1∕2 inches long, of much the same outline, but having the sides rounded and not flat, and the butt brought to a straight sharp edge, was found in Burwell Fen, and is now in the Christy Collection.

A celt of the same section, but of peculiar form, with the sides curved slightly inwards, and tapering considerably to the butt, is shown in Fig. 57. The sides are flat, but have the angles slightly rounded; a narrow flattened face is carried round the butt-end. It would appear to have been made from a calcareous nodule found in some argillaceous bed, like the septaria in the London clay. Both of |116| its faces present a series of diverging cracks, of slight depth, apparently resulting from the dissolution of calcareous veins in the stone. It was found at Nunnington, Yorkshire, and now forms part of the Greenwell Collection.

The original of Fig. 58 was discovered at Burradon, Northumberland, where also the fine flint celt, Fig. 47, was found. This likewise is in the Greenwell Collection. It is of porphyritic stone, and has the angles of the flat sides slightly rounded. Another, in the same collection, 4 inches long, from Doddington, in the same county, is of similar character. Celts of much the same shape and size have been found in the Shetland Isles; one of these, 5 1∕2 inches long, from West Burrafirth, is in the British Museum. A similar form is found in Japan.[387]

Fig. 59 shows a celt of much the same kind, found at Livermere, near Bury St. Edmunds. It is formed of a close-grained greenstone, and is in my own collection. The angles at the sides are slightly rounded. I have others of nearly the same size and of similar material, found near Cirencester, and at Soham and Bottisham, Cambs. Greenstone celts of about this size, and with the sides more or less flat, so as to range between Figs. 48 and 58, are of not uncommon occurrence in the Fen country. Mr. Fisher, of Ely, has one, found near Manea, and several from Bottisham. I have one, of felstone, 3 1∕2 inches long, found at Coton, Cambs., one side of which presents a flat surface 3∕8 inch wide, while the other is but slightly flattened. One (4 3∕10 inches) was found near Torquay, Devon.[388]

A still more triangular form, more convex on the faces, and having |117| the flat sides much narrower, is shown in Fig. 60, from a specimen in the Greenwell Collection, found at Ilderton, Northumberland. It is formed of a hard, slaty rock or hone-stone. The angles of the sides are rounded.

In the National Museum at Edinburgh are two implements of greenstone (2 3∕4 and 3 inches) of nearly similar form to Fig. 60, but having the sides sharp. They were found in the Isle of Skye.[389]

A smaller celt of the same character, 2 1∕2 inches long, found in a cairn at Brindy Hill, Aberdeenshire,[390] is in the British Museum.

One 2 5∕8 inches long, from Sardis,[391] in Lydia, and in the same collection, is of much the same form, but rounder at the sides and less pointed at the butt.

Implements of the form represented in Fig. 61 occur most frequently in the northern part of Britain, especially in Cumberland and Westmorland, in consequence, it may be supposed, of the felspathic rocks, of which they are usually formed, being there found in the greatest abundance. That here figured is in the British Museum. It is of mottled close-grained stone, beautifully finished, and was found in a turf pit on Windy Harbour Farm, near Pendle, Lancashire.[392] It is more slender than the generality of the implements of this class, which in outline usually more closely resemble Fig. 77, which, however, has a cutting edge at each end. They sometimes slightly expand towards the butt-end.

I have a more roughly-finished implement of this class, with the two faces faceted longitudinally, found near Wigton, Cumberland, and formerly in the Crosthwaite Museum, at Keswick. It is of felspathic ash, much decomposed on the surface, and 9 inches long. I have also a small example of the type (7 1∕2 inches) made of whin-stone, and found by Mr. W. Whitaker, F.R.S., near Sudbury, Suffolk, in 1873. Some larger specimens of similar character are in the Christy Collection. One of them is 13 3∕4 inches in length.

In the Greenwell Collection is an implement of this type, but with the sides straighter, and the angles rounded, found at Holme, on Spalding Moor, Yorkshire. It is of hone-stone, 7 inches long, 2 1∕2 inches broad at the edge, but tapering to 1 1∕4 inches at the butt. There is also another of felstone, 12 3∕4 long, found at Great Salkeld, Cumberland.

There is a celt of this type in the Blackmore Museum (13 1∕8 inches), the butt-end round and sharpened, though the edge has been removed by grinding. It is said to have been found, 5 or 6 feet deep in gravel, |118| at Shaw Hall,[393] near Flixton, Lancashire. Another, in the same collection (8 inches), was found near Keswick.

What from the engraving would appear to be a large implement of this kind, has been described by Mr. Cuming[394] as a club. “It is wrought of fawn-coloured hone-slate, much like that obtained in the neighbourhood of Snowdon. It weighs 6 1∕4 pounds, and measures 17 5∕8 inches in length, nearly 3 3∕4 inches across its greatest breadth, and nearly 2 1∕8 inches in its greatest thickness. The faces are convex, the edges blunt and thinning off at both of the rounded extremities.” It was found near Newton, Lancashire. Another so-called club is mentioned as having been found near Keswick.[395]

Clumsy and unwieldy as implements of such a length appear to be if mounted as axes, there can be no doubt of their having been intended for use as cutting tools; and though, from their size, they might be considered to be clubs, yet their form is but ill-adapted for such a weapon, even if we assume that, as is said to be the case with the New Zealand mere, they were sometimes employed for thrusting as well as for striking, and, therefore, had the broad end sharpened. The Stirlingshire specimen, Fig. 77, which is 13 1∕4 inches long, is, however, sharp at both ends. There have been, moreover, discovered in Denmark what are indubitably celts, longer than the Newton so-called club. They are sometimes more than 18 inches long, and I have myself such an implement from Jutland, of ochreous flint, 16 inches long and 3 inches broad at the edge, which is carefully sharpened. I have another roughly-chipped Danish celt of flint, 14 1∕2 inches long, which weighs 6 lbs. 14 oz., or more than that from Newton. |119|

The celt found in Solway Moss, with its handle still preserved, as will subsequently be mentioned, is of the form of Fig. 61. It is of felspathic rock, 9 1∕2 inches long and 2 1∕4 inches broad, the edge slightly oblique.

One of felstone (15 1∕2 inches), was found at Drumour,[396] in Glenshee, Forfarshire, with another 13 inches long. This latter widens out suddenly at the butt. The larger of these two presents on its surface a transverse mark, not unlike that on the Solway Moss specimen, such as may have resulted from that portion of the surface having been protected for a time by a wooden handle, which eventually decayed and perished.

Another from Lempitlaw, in the Kelso Museum, is 13 inches long.

The flattening of the sides and faces of celts is sometimes, though rarely, carried to such an extent that they become almost rectangular in section.

That shown in Fig. 62 was found near the Rye bank, at Ness,[397] in the North Riding of Yorkshire, and is formed of a dark, much altered slaty rock, containing a good deal of iron. The butt-end, though brought to an edge, is not so sharp as the broader or cutting end. The surface is somewhat decomposed. It is in the Greenwell Collection, in which also is the somewhat analogous implement shown in Fig. 63.

This also is from the same part of Yorkshire, having been found, in 1868, at Gilling,[398] in the Vale of Mowbray, 4 ft. deep in peaty clay. It |120| is formed of clay iron-stone, and has the angles somewhat rounded. The edge is oblique and slightly chipped away. Another celt of close-grained schist (5 3∕4 inches), found in the same parish, and preserved in the same collection, more resembles in outline that from Ness, though not sharp at the butt, and having an oblique edge. In the Greenwell Collection is a thinner celt of the same type, found at Heslerton Carr.

I have a specimen (5 1∕4 inches) of hone-stone, rather flatter on one face than the other, from Kirkcaldy, Fife.

An Italian celt, of much the same character as Fig. 62, but of greenstone, has been figured by Gastaldi.[399]

The next celt which I have to describe is even more chisel-like in |121| appearance, both the faces and sides being almost flat and nearly parallel. This peculiarity of form is no doubt mainly due to the schistose character of the rock from which the implement is made; which, in the case of the original of Fig. 64, is a close-grained slate or hone-stone. It was found at Swinton, near Malton, Yorkshire, and was given to me by the late Mr. C. Monkman. The angles are slightly rounded, and the butt-end is tapered off as if to an edge, which, however, is now broken away.

Long, narrow celts of this rectangular section are of very rare occurrence both in Britain and Ireland, and, so far as I am aware, have never been found of flint. In Denmark, on the contrary, they are common in flint, but generally of a larger size than the specimen here engraved. The faces also are usually rather more convex.

They are to be found among the North American[400] forms, sometimes with a hole towards the butt-end, as if for suspension.

Somewhat the same form occurs in Siam and in the Malay Peninsula.

The next specimen, shown in Fig. 65, is of the same material as the last, and was found in the same neighbourhood, at the Dykes, Scamridge, in the North Riding of Yorkshire. Owing to the irregular fissure of the stone, it is considerably thicker at one side than the other. The broader side is flat with the angles chamfered, and the narrower side is rounded. The faces taper at the butt-end, which is ground to a |122| regular curve and blunted. This also was given to me by the late Mr. C. Monkman, of Malton.

A curious variety of celt is shown in Fig. 66, the original of which was found at Whitwell, in the North Riding of Yorkshire, and forms part of the Greenwell Collection. It is made of a hard, shelly limestone, apparently of Oolitic age, the surface of which has been partially eroded. It is nearly flat on one face, and seems to have been intended for mounting as an adze. Other celts of similar material have been found in the same district, and Canon Greenwell has kindly presented me with one of much the same character as this, though far broader in proportion to its thickness. This specimen, which was found at Osgodby, closely resembles in section that from Truro, Fig. 84.

A specimen of the type of Fig. 66 (7 1∕4 inches) is in the British Museum. It was found at Creekmoor, near Poole, Dorset.

Some of the large celts from the Shetland Isles present the same peculiarity of being flat on one face, but, as the sides are much rounded, I shall include them among those of oval section.

* * * * *

These, of oval section, form the third subdivision of polished celts, which I now proceed to describe.

* * * * *

It will be observed that implements of this character, formed of flint, are extremely rare. The reason for this appears to be, that from the method in which, in this country, flint celts were chipped out, the sides were in all cases originally sharp, and they had a pointed oval, or vesica piscis, section. In polishing, this form was to a great extent preserved, though the edges were, as has been seen, sometimes ground flat and sometimes rounded. It rarely happens, however, that the rounding is carried to so great an extent as to produce such a contour that it is impossible to say within a little where the faces end and the sides begin; though this is often the case with celts of greenstone and other materials, which were shaped out in a somewhat different manner, and in the formation of which grinding played a more important part. It is almost needless to say that I use the word oval in its popular sense, and not as significant of a mathematically true ellipse. At the part where the edge of the celts commences, the section is of course a vesica piscis.

The first specimen engraved, Fig. 67, is in my own collection, and was found in the Thames at London. It is of dark greenstone, and, owing to a defect in the piece of stone of which it was made, there is a hollow place in one of the faces. General Pitt Rivers has a similar but more symmetrical celt, of the same material, also found in the Thames. Another, smaller, from the same source, is in the British |123| Museum; and another (8 inches) from the collection of the late Rev. T. Hugo, F.S.A.,[401] is now mine. Its edge is rather oblique. I have another from the Thames (7 1∕2 inches) with a symmetrical edge.

Large implements of this form are of not uncommon occurrence in Scotland and in the Shetland Isles. There are several in the National Museum at Edinburgh, and also in the British Museum, and in that of Newcastle. The butt-end is occasionally pointed, and the faces in broad specimens, flatter than in Fig. 67. Several of these celts |124| in the British Museum were found in the middle of the last century, in Shetland. The largest is 11 inches long, 3 inches wide at the edge, and 1 3∕4 inches thick. It was found in Selter,[402] parish of Walls. Others are from 8 inches to 9 inches long. In the case of one, 12 inches long, from Shetland, and in the Edinburgh Museum, the edge is oblique.

Mr. J. W. Cursiter, of Kirkwall, has a beautiful, long, narrow celt of oval section, from Lunnasting, Shetland. It is formed of spherulitic felstone, and is 9 1∕4 inches long, but only 2 1∕8 inches wide at the broadest part. Another, 12 inches long, from Trondra, is of felstone, and slightly curved longitudinally, so that it was probably an adze.

Others[403] (14, 11, 10 1∕2, and 9 inches) have been figured.

In the Greenwell Collection is a celt of this kind formed of porphyritic greenstone, 13 inches long, from Sandsting, Shetland.

A celt of greenstone (8 inches), in outline much resembling Fig. 72, was found, in 1758, at Tresta, in the parish of Aithsting, Shetland, and is now in the British Museum. It is flat on one face, the other being convex, so that the section is an oval with a segment removed. Such an instrument must, in all probability, have been mounted as an adze, though the flat face may have originally been due to the cleavage of the material, which is a porphyritic greenstone.

Another celt (6 1∕4 inches), flat on one face, so that the section presents little more than half an oval, was found in the island of Yell, and is now in the Newcastle Museum.

I have a large heavy celt less tapering at the butt than Fig. 67, 8 1∕2 inches long, 3 1∕2 inches wide, and 2 1∕4 inches thick, said to have been found at Spalding, Lincolnshire. One of flint (7 inches) nearly oval in section, and found at Northampton, is in the museum at that town.

Celts of the same form and character as Fig. 67 are found both in Ireland and in France.

Fig. 68 shows another variety of this type, which becomes almost conical at the butt. The original was found near Bridlington, and is |125| now in my own collection. The material is greenstone. Implements of this form, but rarely expanding at the edge, are of common occurrence in that part of Yorkshire. Some of them have been made of a variety of greenstone liable to decomposition from atmospheric or other causes, and the celts when found present a surface so excessively eroded that their form can with difficulty be recognized. In the Greenwell Collection are celts of the type of Fig. 68, from Willerby, in the East Riding (6 1∕4 inches and 5 1∕2 inches), and Crambe, in the North Riding of Yorkshire (6 1∕4 inches), as well as another (5 3∕4 inches) from Sherburn, Durham. I have one nearly 8 inches long, from Speeton, near Bridlington, and several (5 1∕2 to 6 inches) from the Cambridge Fens. The surface of one of them is for the most part decomposed, but along a vein of harder material the original polish is preserved.

Mr. F. Spalding has found one (8 inches), with a sideways curve, on the shore at Walton-on-the-Naze.

A greenstone celt of this form (8 1∕2 inches) was found at Minley Manor,[404] Blackwater, Hants.

In the Fitch Collection is one of serpentine (6 1∕4 inches), from Dull’s Lane, near Loddon, Norfolk, and the late Mr. J. W. Flower had one of greenstone (4 1∕4 inches), found at Melyn Works, Neath. The greenstone celt found in Grime’s Graves,[405] Norfolk, was of this form, but rather longer in its proportions, being 7 1∕2 inches long and 2 1∕4 inches broad at the edge, which is oblique. The late Mr. H. Durden, of Blandford, had a greenstone celt of this type (5 inches), found at Langton, near Blandford, the butt-end of which is roughened by picking, probably for insertion in a socket; and the late Rev. E. Duke, of Lake, near Salisbury, had a celt of this character, found in a tumulus in that parish. I have both French and Danish specimens of the same form at the butt, though narrower at the edge.

Another variety, in which the butt-end is less pointed and more oval, is given in Fig. 69. The original is of dark green hornblende schist, and was found at Lakenheath, Suffolk. I have a large implement of similar form and material (5 1∕2 inches), with the edge slightly oblique, from Swaffham, Cambridgeshire; another of serpentine (3 1∕4 inches), from Coldham’s Common, Cambridge; others of greenstone (4 and 3 3∕4 inches), from Kempston, Bedford, and Burwell Fen, Cambs.; as well as one of greenstone (4 3∕8 inches), from Standlake, Oxon. A celt of this type, of porphyritic stone (5 1∕2 inches), found |126| at Branton, Northumberland, is in the Greenwell Collection. It is slightly oblique at the edge. Another of the same character, of greenstone (6 3∕4 inches), found at Sproughton, Suffolk, is in the Fitch Collection. Another, 5 inches long, found at Kingston-on-Thames, is in the Museum of the Society of Antiquaries.

Another of green serpentine, faceted to form the edge, and rounded at butt, 4 inches long, was found in a cairn in Fifeshire, and is preserved in the National Museum at Edinburgh.

In the Blackmore Museum is a celt of granite tapering to the rounded point at the butt, 6 1∕2 inches long, which has been roughened at the upper end, and is polished towards the edge. It was found in the River Lambourn, Berks.

I have seen another of this form, but of flint (4 1∕2 inches), with the sides much rounded, so as to be almost oval, found near Eastbourne, where also this form has occurred in greenstone. The late Mr. H. Durden, of Blandford, had a celt of greenstone of this form 4 3∕8 inches long, found at Tarrant Launceston, Dorset. Many of the celts found in India are of this type.

A shorter form, which also seems to be most prevalent in Yorkshire, is represented in Fig. 70. The specimen figured is from Seamer, formed of greenstone, and belongs to the Greenwell Collection. In the same collection is another (4 inches), rather larger and thicker, from Scampston. Another of quartzite (5 inches), polished all over, but showing traces of having been worked with a pick, was found at Birdsall, near Malton, and is in the collection of Messrs. Mortimer, of Driffield. I have one of greenstone (4 1∕2 inches), also from Seamer.

A celt of greenstone, of the same section, but broader and more truncated at the butt, 3 inches long, and found near Bellingham, North Tyne, is in the Newcastle Museum. Another (4 inches), in outline more like Fig. 60, was found in a sepulchral cave at Rhos Digre,[406] Denbighshire.

Some of the stone celts from Italy, Greece, Asia Minor[407] and India, are of much the same form, but usually rather longer in their proportions. I have some Greek specimens more like Fig. 71—kindly given to me by Captain H. Thurburn, F.G.S. Celts of this character are said to have been in use among the North American Indians[408] as fleshing |127| instruments, employed by the women in the preparation of skins. They were not hafted, but held in the hand like chisels. I have a celt almost identical in form and material with Fig. 70, but from Central India.

The form shown in Fig. 71 is inserted among those of Britain, though geographically it may be regarded as French rather than British, having been found in Guernsey. I have engraved it from a cast presented to the Society of Antiquaries by the late Mr. F. C. Lukis, F.S.A. The form occurs in various materials—rarely flint—and is common through the whole of France. A specimen from Surrey is in the British Museum. I have seen one which was said to have been found in the neighbourhood of London, but it was not improbably an imported specimen.

Should authenticated instances of the finding of celts of this class in our southern counties be adduced, they will be of interest as affording primâ facie evidence of intercourse with the Continent at an early period.

Small hatchets, both oval and circular in section, have been found at Accra,[409] West Africa, and others, larger, on the Gold Coast.[410] The same form is not uncommon in Greece and Asia Minor.

Major Sladen brought several small jade celts of this form, but flatter at the sides, from Yun-nan, in Southern China. Through his liberality several are in the Christy Collection, and one in my own. Some hæmatite celts found in North America[411] are of much the same size and form.

The specimen engraved as Fig. 72 was found in the neighbourhood of Wareham, Dorsetshire, and is in my own collection. It is formed of syenite, and, unlike the instruments previously described, is narrower at the edge than in the middle of the blade; the section shows that the faces are nearly flat. I have another celt, in which these peculiarities are exaggerated, the |128| faces being flatter, the blade thinner, and also wider in the middle in proportion to the edge, it being 5 1∕2 inches long, 2 1∕4 inches wide in the middle, and 1 1∕2 inches at the edge, and rather less than an inch in thickness. The material is a Serpula limestone, and the celt was no doubt formed from a travelled block, as it was found in a Boulder-clay district at Troston, near Bury St. Edmunds. I have a much heavier implement from the same locality, and formed of the same kind of stone. It is 10 inches long, and rather wider in proportion than Fig. 72. It does not narrow towards the edge, but in section and general form may be classed with the specimen there figured.

A large celt, 10 inches long, of the same section, but thinner proportionally, and with straighter and more parallel sides, in outline more like Fig. 79, was found at Pilmoor, in the North Riding of Yorkshire, and forms part of the Greenwell Collection. It is of clay-slate. Another in the same collection, and from North Holme, in the same Riding (10 inches), is broader and flatter, with the sides somewhat more square, and the edge more curved. One face is somewhat hollowed towards one side, possibly to grind out the trace of a too deep chip. A third is from Barmston, in the East Riding (10 1∕2 inches), and a beautiful celt of hornblendic serpentine (10 5∕8 inches), oval in section and pointed at the butt, was found at Cunningsburgh,[412] Shetland, and another of diorite (10 1∕8 inches), rather broader in its proportions than Fig. 72, on Ambrisbeg Hill,[413] Island of Bute. An analogous form from Japan is in the museum at Leyden.

A long narrow chisel-like celt, with an oval section, is given in Fig. 73. The original is of dark greenstone, and was found in Forfarshire. It is in the National Museum at Edinburgh. I have a larger celt of the same form (5 1∕2 inches), formed of a close-grained grit, and found at Sherburn, Yorkshire. Messrs. Mortimer have another of schist (4 1∕2 inches), from Thixendale, Yorkshire. This form occurs, though rarely, in Ireland.

A much larger celt, of metamorphic rock, 8 1∕2 inches long, 3 inches broad at the edge, and 1 3∕4 inches at the butt, 1 3∕8 inches thick, was found on Throckley Fell, Northumberland, and is in the Museum at Newcastle.

Fig. 74 gives a shorter form of implement truncated at the butt. The original, which is in my own collection, is formed of greenstone, and was found at Easton, near Bridlington. It is carefully polished towards the edge, but at the butt it is roughened, apparently with the intention of rendering it more capable of adhesion to its socket. The celt from Malton, Fig. 81, is roughened in a similar manner, and the same is the case with many of the hatchets from the Swiss lake-dwellings, which have been frequently found still fixed in their sockets of stag’s horn. |129|

I have another specimen, from South Back Lane, Bridlington, which, however, is not roughened at the butt, and the sides of which have had a narrow flat facet ground along them. It is 6 inches long, and 3 1∕2 inches wide at the edge. Mr. W. Tucker has shown me a broken specimen like Fig. 74, found near Loughborough.

Another form presents a rather pointed, and unusually elongated oval in section, and is pointed at the butt. Fig. 75 represents a highly-finished celt of this kind made of light green, almost jade-like stone, preserved in the National Museum at Edinburgh, and said to have been found in Caithness. It is so thoroughly Carib in character, and so closely resembles specimens I possess from the West Indian Islands, that for some time I hesitated to engrave it. There are, however, sufficiently numerous instances of other implements of the same form having been found in this country for the type to be accepted as British. The celt found at Glasgow,[414] in a canoe at a depth of twenty-five feet below the surface, was of this kind. In the Greenwell Collection is one of porphyritic greenstone (7 inches), and of nearly this form, found at Grantchester, Cambridge. Two celts of this character, the one from Jamaica and the other from the North of Italy, are engraved in the Archæologia.[415] Both are in the British Museum.

A celt like Fig. 75 (4 1∕2 inches), of a material like jadeite, is said to |130| have been found about 60 years ago at King’s Sutton,[416] Northamptonshire. It has much the appearance of being Carib.

Four greenstone celts of this type, one of them rather crooked laterally, were found in 1869 at Bochym,[417] Cury, Cornwall.

Another of aphanite (11 1∕2 inches) from Cornwall[418] is in the Edinburgh Museum, where is also one of the same material and form (10 1∕2 inches) from Berwickshire,[419] two others of grey porphyritic stone (9 inches) from Aberdeenshire,[420] and another of porphyrite (10 inches) found near Lerwick,[421] Shetland.

I have specimens of the same type from various parts of France. In the Greenwell Collection is a Spanish celt of the same form found near Cadiz.

The bulk of the celts found in Ireland, and formed of other materials than flint, approximate in form to Figs. 69 to 75, though usually rather thinner in their proportion. They range, however, widely in shape, and vary much in their degree of finish.

* * * * *

I now come to the fourth of the subdivisions under which, mainly for the sake of having some basis for classification, I have arranged the polished celts. In it, I have placed those which present any abnormal peculiarities; and the first of these which I shall notice are such as do not materially affect the outline of the celts; as, for instance, the existence of a second cutting edge at the butt-end, at a part where, though the blade is usually tapered away and ground, yet it very rarely happens that it has been left sharp. Indeed, in almost all cases, if in shaping and polishing the celt the butt-end has at one time been sharpened, the edge has been afterwards carefully removed by grinding it away.

* * * * *

The beautifully-formed implement of ochreously-stained flint represented in Fig. 76, was found at Gilmerton, in East Lothian, and is preserved in the National Museum at Edinburgh. The sides are flat with the angles rounded off, and the blade expands slightly at the ends, both of which are sharpened. It is carefully polished all over, so as to show no traces of its having been chipped out, except a slight depression on one face, and this is polished like the rest of the blade. It is upwards of a century since this instrument was turned up by the plough, as described in the Minutes of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland[422] for April 2, 1782, where it is mentioned as the “head of a hatchet of polished yellow marble, sharpened at both ends.”

Another from Shetland[423] (11 1∕2 inches) is made of serpentine and has both ends “formed to a rounded cutting edge.” |131|

A celt from Kirklauchline, Wigtownshire, mentioned at page 135, is much like Fig. 76 in outline.

A somewhat similar instrument, but narrower at the butt, formed of jade (?) and 11 inches long, found at Nougaroulet, is engraved in the Revue de Gascogne.[424]

Fig. 77 represents another celt, in the Edinburgh Museum, of similar section, but expanding only at the butt-end, which is sharpened, |133| and contracting from the middle towards the broader end, which, as usual, seems to have been the principal cutting end. It is formed of compact greenstone, and was found in Stirlingshire. In general outline, it closely resembles a common Cumberland form, of which, however, the butt is not sharp. Several such were found in Ehenside Tarn,[425] Cumberland, varying in length from 6 to 14 1∕2 inches. One of them was in its original haft. The whole are now in the British Museum. Another celt (10 3∕4 inches), made of a fine volcanic ash, was found in 1873 near Loughrigg Tarn,[426] Westmorland. Two celts of much the same form from Drumour,[427] Glenshee, Forfarshire, in 1870, are mentioned on page 119.

Celts with an edge at each end are rare on the Continent, though they are of more frequent occurrence in Ireland. One of this character, found in Dauphiné, France,[428] has been engraved by M. Chantre.

Another from Portugal[429] has been described by myself elsewhere.

A celt of shorter proportions, but also provided with a cutting edge at each end, is shown in Fig. 78. It is in the Greenwell Collection, and was found at Harome, in the North Riding of Yorkshire, where several stone implements of rare form have been discovered. The material is a hard clay-slate. The tool seems quite as well adapted for being used in the hand without any mounting, as for attachment to a haft. |135|

Another of these implements, with a cutting edge at either end, is shown in Fig. 79.

As will be observed, it is curved longitudinally, so that if attached to a handle, it must have been after the manner of an adze and not of an axe. The sides curve slightly inwards, which would render any attachment to a handle more secure.

The material of which it is formed is a dark green porphyry. It was found in a cairn at Daviot,[430] near Inverness, in company with a celt of oval section, and pointed at the butt (9 1∕2 inches); and also with a greenstone pestle (?) (10 1∕4 inches), rounded at each end. This latter was probably formed from a long pebble. They are all preserved in the National Museum at Edinburgh. A curved celt of this character but pointed at the butt-end (14 inches), formed of indurated clay-stone, was found in Shetland.[431] A straighter celt of felstone (13 inches), blunt at the butt-end, was found at Kirklauchline,[432] Wigtownshire.

The next peculiarity which I have to notice, is that of the tapering sides of the celt being curved inwards, as if for the purpose of being more securely fixed either to a handle or in a socket. In the last implement described, the reduction in width towards the middle of the blade would appear to have been intended to assist in fastening it at the end of a handle, as an adze cutting at each end. In Fig. 80 the reduction in width is more abrupt, and the blade would appear to have been mounted as an axe. It is formed of a compact light grey metamorphic rock, and was formerly in the collection of the Rev. S. Banks, of Cottenham, Cambridgeshire. I have a greenstone celt found at Carnac, Brittany, with shoulders of the same character about the middle of the blade. A form of celt expanding into a kind of knob at the butt-end is peculiar to the Lower Loire.[433] It is known as the “hâche à bouton,” or “hâche à tête.”

The original of Fig. 81 was found in a gravel-pit near Malton, Yorkshire. It was at first supposed to have been found in undisturbed |136| drift, and some correspondence upon the subject appeared in the Times newspaper.[434] The gravel, however, in which it was found seems to belong to the series of Glacial deposits, and if so, is of considerably greater antiquity than any of the old River-gravels, in which the unpolished flint implements have been discovered. This celt is of greenstone, carefully polished at the edge, and towards the butt slightly roughened by being picked with a sharp pointed tool. This roughening is in character similar to that which has been observed on many of the celts from the Swiss Lake-dwellings and from France,[435] and was no doubt intended in their case to make the stone adhere more firmly in the socket of stag’s horn in which it was inserted. The object in this case would appear to be the same; and, like other polished celts, it belongs to the Neolithic Period. The expansion of the blade towards the edge is very remarkable.

A celt of the same type as that from Malton, but somewhat oblique at the edge, and formed of quartz containing pyrites, found at Soden, is in the Museum at Bonn.

A flat form of stone hatchet, expanding rapidly from a slightly tapering butt about half the entire length of the blade, so as to form a semicircular cutting-edge, has been found in South Carolina.[436] There is a small perforation in the centre, as if for a pin, to assist in securing it in its handle.

Another form, with the blade reduced for about half its length, so as to form a sort of tang, is engraved by Squier and Davis.[437]

The celt engraved in Fig. 82 presents an abrupt shoulder on one side only, which, however, is in this case probably due to the form of the pebble from which it was made, a portion of which had split off along a line of natural cleavage. It is formed of a reddish, close-grained porphyritic rock, and is subquadrate in section at the butt. It was found at Mennithorpe, Yorkshire, and is in the Greenwell Collection. In the same collection is a thin celt of clay-slate, 4 3∕4 inches long, of much the same form, but rounded at the shoulder. It was found at Ryedale, in the North Riding of Yorkshire.

Some of the shouldered implements may have been intended for use in the hand, without hafting. This appears to be the case with the greenstone celt shown in Fig. 83. It was found on Middleton Moor, Derbyshire, and was in the collection of the late Mr. J. F. Lucas. The shallow grooves at the sides seem intended to receive the fingers much in the same manner as the grooves in the handles of some of |137| the tools of the Eskimos or the handles of the bronze sickles of the Swiss Lake-dwellers.[438] An Irish celt, 8 inches long, and now in the Blackmore Museum, has two notches on one side only, and more distinctly formed, “seemingly to receive the fingers and give a firmer hold when used in the hand without a haft.”

Another peculiar instrument adapted for being held in the hand is shown in Fig. 83A. It was found at Keystone, Huntingdonshire,[439] and is now in the British Museum. It is made of greenstone, and in form resembles the sharp end of a celt with flat sides let into a spherical handle. Some hand-hatchets from Australia are of much the same character, but in their case the knob is distinct from the blade, and formed of hard xanthorrhæa gum. |138|

The original of Fig. 84 is in the Greenwell Collection, and was found near Truro. It is of serpentine, with an oblique edge, and seems to have been formed from a pebble with little labour beyond that of sharpening one end. Though much flatter on one face than the other, it would appear, from the slanting edge, to have been used as an axe and not as an adze, unless indeed it were a hand-tool.

A beautiful adze formed of chalcedonic flint is shown in Fig. 84A. kindly lent by the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. The original was found at Fernie Brae,[440] Slains, Aberdeenshire. It is 7 inches long, and of nearly triangular section. A somewhat similar adze of greenstone was found at Little Barras,[441] Drumlithie, Kincardineshire. I have a flint adze (5 inches) of much the same character, but not so flat and blunt at the butt-end, and ground at the edge only, which was found in Reach Fen, Cambs. It is shown in Fig. 35A at page 92.

Another peculiarity of form is where the edge, instead of being as usual nearly in the centre of the blade, is almost in the same plane as one of the faces, like that of a joiner’s chisel. An implement of this character, from a “Pict’s castle,” Clickemin, near Lerwick, Shetland, is shown in Fig. 85.

It was presented to me by the late Rev. Dr. Knowles, F.S.A. The material appears to be a hard clay-slate. The form is well adapted for being mounted as an adze, much in the same manner as the nearly similar implements in use by the South Sea Islanders. A New Zealand[442] adze of precisely the same character has been figured.

Sometimes the edge of a celt, instead of being sharp, has been carefully removed by grinding, so as to present a flat or rounded surface. |139| In Fig. 86 is represented a singular implement of this kind in flint. It is polished all over; one side is straight, and the other curved; both ends are curved, but one is rounded at the edge and the other flat. It is difficult to understand for what purpose such an instrument can have been intended. There is no reason for supposing that the grinding at the ends was later in date than the formation of the other parts. I have others like Fig. 30 with the edge also flattened, one of these I found, as already mentioned, at Abbot’s Langley; and I have seen another flint celt of much the same form, found at Chesterford, Cambs., with a somewhat flat edge, but rounded and worn away, as if by scraping some soft substance. Small transverse striæ, such as might have been caused by particles of sand, are visible on the worn edge. In the Greenwell Collection is a portion of a celt of greenstone, the fractured face ground flat and a portion of the edge also ground away.

A small flint celt, with a round polished edge instead of a cutting one as usual, was found, with other objects, in a barrow on Elton Moor, Derbyshire.[443] I have seen a small flint celt like Fig. 33, with the edge perfectly rounded by grinding. It was found between Deal and Dover, near Kingsdown, by Mr. Hazzeldine Warren, of Waltham Cross.

It is hard to say for what purpose the edge was thus made blunt. In some cases, however, the instruments may have been used as battle-axes, the edges of which when of the perforated forms are usually flattened or rounded, probably with the view of preventing accidental injury to those who carried them. In some celts, however, the broad end is so much rounded that they can hardly be said to have an edge, and they have more the appearance of having-been burnishing or |140| calendering tools. I have observed this rounding of the end in some Irish and French specimens, not made of flint, as well as in one from India.

Occasionally, but very seldom, a circular concave recess is worked on each face of the celt, apparently for the purpose of preventing it from slipping when held in the hand and used either as a chopping or cutting instrument. That engraved as Fig. 87 was kindly lent me by Mr. J. R. Mortimer, who found it on Acklam Wold, Yorkshire. It is of greenstone, and has been polished over almost the entire surface. The butt-end is nearly flat transversely, and ground in the other direction to a sweep, so as to fit beneath the forefinger, when held by the thumb and middle-finger placed in the recesses on the faces. Such recesses are by no means uncommon on the stones intended for use as hammers, and farther on (p. 242) I have engraved a hammer-stone of this class which would seem to have been originally a celt such as this, but which has entirely lost any approach to an edge by continual battering. In Mr. Mortimer’s specimen the edge is fairly sharp, though it has lost some splinters from it in ancient times.

In the same collection is another specimen, found near Fimber, formed of a green metamorphic rock. The butt-end is ground flat, and the sides nearly so. There is a slight depression worked on each face. The edge is slightly rounded, and shows longitudinal striæ. By the owner’s kindness I am able to engrave it as Fig. 88.

In General Pitt Rivers’s Collection is a celt from Hindostan, with a cup-shaped depression on one of its faces. A celt of basalt from Portugal[444] has such a depression on each face.

In the fine and extensive Greenwell Collection, so often referred to, is another remarkable celt, Fig. 89, which, though entirely different in character from those last described, may also have been intended for holding in the hand. It is of greenstone, the surface of which is considerably decomposed, and was found at Duggleby, in the East Riding of Yorkshire. On each side is an elongated concavity, well adapted for receiving the end of the forefinger when the instrument is held in the hand with the thumb on one face and the middle finger on the other. At first sight it might appear that the depressions had been made |141| with the view of perforating the blade, so as to make it like Fig. 133. It is, however, too thin for such a purpose, and as the depressions can hardly be connected with any method of hafting, it appears probable that they are merely for the purpose of giving the hand a secure grip, when using the instrument as a cutting tool. This form is not uncommon in India.

Some of the stone hatchets from British Guiana[445] have a notch on either side, apparently to assist in fastening them to their haft. A form with projecting lugs half-way down the blade has been found in Armenia.[446]

The last peculiarity I have to notice is when the blade of the celt assumes an ornamental character, by being fluted or otherwise ornamented. That represented in Fig. 90 is deeply fluted on either face. I have engraved the figure from a cast in the Museum of the Society of Antiquaries, the original of which was in the possession of F. C. Lukis, Esq., M.D. It was found at St. Sampson, Guernsey. Assuming the figure given by M. Brouillet to be correct, a somewhat similar celt of red flint was found with skeletons in the Tombelle de Brioux, Poitou.[447] Another with three hollow facets on the lower parts of one face was found in Finistère.[448] I have a small celt of nearly similar form, but not so hollow on the faces, from Costa Rica. Such specimens are extremely rare, and I cannot at present point to any other examples. Indeed, it may be questioned how far the implements found in the Channel Islands come within the scope of the present work. The |142| grooves in the faces of the celt found at Trinity, near Edinburgh,[449] can hardly have been intended for ornament.

A kind of celt, not uncommon in Denmark, like Fig. 55, but with a small hole drilled through it at the butt-end, as if for suspension, like a sailor’s knife, has very rarely been found in England, but I have a broken specimen from Cavenham, Suffolk, formed of greenstone. When perfect the celt must have been in outline like Fig. 69, but thinner.

A perfect example is shown in Fig. 90A. It is formed of whin-stone and was found in 1896 at Wereham, near Stoke Ferry, Norfolk. It is in the collection of Mr. E. M. Beloe, F.S.A., who has kindly permitted me to figure it. It is curiously striated towards the butt-end, possibly from friction in a socket. One from Thetford, perforated through the centre of the face, is in the National Museum at Edinburgh. Another of felstone (11 1∕4 inches), oval in section, found at Melness, Sutherlandshire, was exhibited to the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland in March, 1897. Bored celts, though rare in Britain, occur in Brittany[450] and other parts of France, as well as in Italy.[451] A few have also been found in Ireland.[452] A stone hatchet from Quito in the Christy Collection, though of somewhat different form, is perforated at the end in this manner.

A vastly greater number of instances of the discovery in Britain of stone hatchets or celts might have been cited; but inasmuch as in most cases where mention is made of celts, no particulars are given of their form, and as they occur in all parts of the country, it seems needless to encumber my pages with references. As an instance of |143| their abundance, I may mention that the late Mr. Bateman[453] records the discovery of upwards of thirty, at fourteen different localities within a small district of Derbyshire. Numerous discoveries in Yorkshire are cited by Mr. C. Monkman.[454]

Dr. Joseph Stevens has recorded several from the Thames near Reading,[455] and a very large number of those in my own and various public collections I have had to leave unnoticed for want of space.

* * * * *

The circumstances under which stone celts of various forms have been discovered must now be considered, with a view of throwing some light on their antiquity, and the length of time they have remained in use. And it must at the outset be confessed that we have but little to guide us on these points. We have already seen that they have been found with objects of bronze; for in the barrow on Upton Lovel Down,[456] examined by Sir R. Colt Hoare, flint celts, both rough and polished, were discovered in company with a perforated stone axe, and a bronze pin, though in this instance there were two interments. The Ravenhill tumulus, near Scarborough,[457] is more conclusive; for in it was an urn containing burnt bones, a broken flint celt, flint arrow-heads, and a beautiful bronze pin one and a-half inches long. The evidence of other recorded cases is but weak. Near Tynewydd, in the parish of Llansilin, Denbighshire,[458] a greenstone celt and a bronze socketed celt were found together in moving an accumulation of stones, which did not, however, appear to have been a cairn. In another instance,[459] three stone celts, one roughly chipped, the others polished, are stated to have been found with a bronze socketed celt in the parish of Southend, Kintyre, Argyllshire. At Campbelton, in the same district,[460] were found two polished stone celts, and with them, on the same spot, two stone moulds for casting looped spear-heads of bronze.

* * * * *

Though there may be doubts as to the true association of stone celts with instruments of bronze in some of these cases, the presumptive evidence is strong of their having remained in use, as might indeed have been reasonably expected, after the introduction of bronze for cutting-tools. By the time bronze knife-daggers had become common, perforated battle-axes had also come to form part of a warrior’s ordinary equipment. These are often found with the daggers in graves, and there can be no doubt of the ordinary form of stone hatchet having preceded that with a shaft-hole. There are, however, a number of facts in connection with the occurrence of the ordinary |144| stone celt that must not be passed over, inasmuch as at first sight they tend to raise a presumption of celts having remained in use even during the period of the Roman occupation of this country. I will shortly recapitulate the principal facts to which I allude.

In excavating a Roman building at Ickleton,[461] Cambs., the late Lord Braybrooke found a greenstone celt; and another is said to have been found with Roman remains at Alchester, Oxfordshire.[462] A flint celt is also described as having been found with Roman antiquities at Eastbourne.[463]

Among the relics discovered by Samuel Lysons, F.R.S., in the Roman villa at Great Witcombe,[464] Gloucestershire, is described “a British hatchet of flint.” Another flint celt was found close by a Roman villa at Titsey.[465] Flint celts and scrapers were found in the Romano-British village in Woodcuts Common,[466] Dorset, by General Pitt Rivers.

A stone celt, like Fig. 70, has been engraved by Artis[467] as a polishing stone used in the manufactory of Roman earthen vessels, but no evidence is given as to the cause of its being thus regarded.

At Leicester, a fragment of a flint celt was found at a depth of twelve feet from the surface on an old “ground line,” and accompanied by bone objects which Sir Wollaston Franks assigned to a late Roman or even possibly to an early Saxon period.[468]

In the Saxon burial-place at Ash, in Kent, were found a polished flint celt, “a circular flint stone,” and a Roman fibula.[469]

In 1868, a fibrolite hatchet was found within a building at Mont Beuvray, the ancient Bibracte,[470] with three Gaulish coins of the time of Augustus.

Others of flint were found in a Merovingian cemetery at Labruyère, in the Côte d’Or.[471]

The occurrence at Gonsenheim, near Mainz, of a series of thin polished celts with remains presumably Roman, has already been mentioned. In two, if not more, instances in Denmark,[472] fragments of iron have been found in tumuli, and apparently in association with polished hatchets and other instruments of flint and stone. It seems doubtful, however, whether in these cases the iron was not subsequently introduced.

* * * * *

The association of these stone implements with Roman, and even Post-Roman, remains in so many different places, would at first sight appear to argue their contemporaneity; but in the case of the celts being found on the sites of Roman villas, two things are to be remarked—First, that sites once occupied may, and constantly do, continue in occupation for an indefinite length of time, so that the imperishable relics of one age, such as those in |145| stone, may become mixed in the soil with those of a long subsequent date; and second, that had these stone implements been in common use in Roman times, their presence among Roman remains would have been the rule and not the exception, and we should have found them mentioned by Latin authors. Moreover, if their use had survived in this manner into Roman times, we should expect to find them still more abundantly associated with tools of the Bronze Age. We have, however, seen how rarely this class of stone instruments is found with bronze.

As to the stone celt discovered at Ash, Mr. Douglas remarks it may not “be improbable that this stone instrument was deposited with the dead, as an amulet; and which the owner had found and preserved with a superstitious reverence.” In a tumulus in Flanders,[473] six celts were found placed upright in a circle round the interment, but from the difference in the condition of their surface they appeared to be of different ages, so that it has been suggested that they also were gathered from the surface of the soil and placed in the tomb as amulets. We shall subsequently see that flint arrow-heads were frequently thus preserved in Merovingian cemeteries.

In many cases in Germany,[474] stone axes, for the most part perforated, are said to have been found in association with objects of iron; but the proofs of the contemporaneity of the two classes of objects are not satisfactory. The religious veneration attaching to the Thor’s hammers may, however, have had to do with their interment in graves, at a time when they had ceased to be in ordinary use. Moreover, the axes may have been preserved to ward off lightning.

Another argument in favour of these instruments having remained in use in Britain until a comparatively late period, has been derived from the circumstance of the words stan-æx and stan-bill, occurring in Ælfric’s Saxon glossary. These words are translated by Lye[475] as a stone axe, a stone bill—terms which have naturally been regarded as referring to axes and bills made of stone, which, therefore, it might be reasonably inferred were in use at the time when the glossary was written, or about A.D. 1000. On examination, however, it appears that no such inference is warranted. The glossary is Latin with the Saxon equivalents annexed to each word, and the two words referred to are |146| Bipennis, rendered twibille and stan-æx; and Marra, rendered stan-bill. Now Bipennis is an axe cutting at either end, and the word is accurately rendered by “twibille;”[476]—the axe having “bill” or steel at its two edges. But a double-cutting axe in stone is a form of very rare occurrence, and this alone raises a presumption of the stan in stan-æx referring to stone in some other manner than as the material of which the axe was made. The second word, Marra, seems to clear up the question, for this was a mattock or pick-axe, or some such tool, and this is rendered stan-bill,—the steel for use on or among stones. The stone axe may be one for cutting stones, like the mill-bill of the present day, which is used for dressing mill-stones, and this being usually sharp at each end, might not inaptly be regarded as the equivalent of the ancient bipennis. An axe is still a bricklayer’s tool, and is also occasionally used by stone-cutters. It seems, then, that the “stan” in these two Saxon words refers, not to the material of which the axes or bills were made, but to the stones on or among which they were used. In Halliwell’s “Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words,”[477] the interpretation of Stone-axe is given as “A stone-worker’s axe,” but it is not stated where the term occurs.

In the “Matériaux”[478] M. Soreil has called attention to a very early German poem, possibly of the fifth century, in which the heroes are described as contending with stone axes. The subject has been discussed by Dr. Much,[479] who suggests that the name survived long after the actual use of the weapons, and points out that the modern word Hellebarde (halberd) has the same meaning, hella in Old German signifying “stone,” and barte being still used to signify an “axe” or “chopper.” He also hints at a connection between the scrama-seax or large knife, with saxum. The whole paper is worth reading.

In the Song of Hildebrand and Hadubrand, probably of the eighth century, stone hammers, staim-borts, are also mentioned.

“Do stoptun tosamane staimbort chludun Hewun harmlicco huitte scilti.”[480]

The passage in “William of Poitiers,”[481]—“Jactant cuspides ac |147| diversorum generum tela, sævissimas quasque secures ac lignis imposita saxa,”—which has been cited as proving that some of the Anglo-Saxons fought with weapons of stone at the battle of Hastings, seems only to refer to stone missiles probably discharged from some engines of war, and serving the same purpose as the stone cannon-balls of more recent times. Professor Nilsson[482] has pointed out that jactare often signifies to brandish, and argues that the large stone axes were too heavy either for brandishing or throwing as weapons. It seems to me, however, that jactare in this passage is used in the sense of throwing, the same as in Virgil,[483]—

“Deucalion vacuum lapides jactavit in orbem, Unde homines nati, durum genus.”

If it be uncertain to how late a period these Neolithic implements remained in use in this country, it is still more uncertain to how early a period their introduction may be referred. If we take the possible limits in either direction, the date at which they fell into disuse becomes approximately fixed as compared with that at which they may first have come into use in Britain. For we may safely say that the use of bronze must have been known in this country 500 or 600 years B.C., and, therefore, that at that time cutting tools of stone began to be superseded; while by A.D. 1100, it will be agreed on all hands that they were no longer in use. We can, therefore, absolutely fix the date of their desuetude within at the outside two thousand years; but who can tell within any such limits the time when a people acquainted with the use of polished stone implements first settled in this island, or when the process of grinding them may have been first developed among native tribes? The long duration of the period which intervened between the deposit of the River-gravels (containing, so far as at present known, implements chipped only and not polished), and the first appearance of polished hatchets, is not in this country so well illustrated as in France; but even there, all that can be said as to the introduction of polished stone hatchets, is that it took place subsequently to the accumulation in the caves of the south of France, of the deposits belonging to an age when reindeer constituted one of the principal articles of food of the cave-dwellers. As to the date at which those cave-deposits were formed, history and tradition are silent, and at present even Geology affords but little aid in determining the question. |148|

But though we cannot fix the range in time of these implements, it will be well to notice some of the circumstances under which they have been found, if only as illustrative of the habits and customs of the ancient people who used them. Of course the most instructive cases are those in which they have occurred with interments, and some of these I have already incidentally mentioned; as, for instance, the discovery in a barrow on Upton Lovel Down of a roughly chipped celt, with others polished at the edge, and other objects; and that of two very roughly chipped flint celts found by Dr. Mantell, in a barrow at Alfriston, Sussex.

* * * * *

A celt of greenstone, ground at the edge only, was found in a barrow with a burnt body on Seamer Moor, Yorkshire, by the Rev. F. Porter; and in another[484] barrow on the same moor, Canon Greenwell found a celt of clay-slate, like Fig. 50, burnt red, in association with a deposit of burnt bones. In a third tumulus on the same moor, opened by the late Lord Londesborough, there were numerous interments, but one of these consisted of a small portion of human bones,[485] four flint celts, five beautifully formed arrow-heads of flint, two rude spear-heads of flint, two well-formed knives and spear-heads of flint, two very large tusks of the wild boar, and a piece of deer-horn, perforated at the end and drilled through, which was thought to be the handle for one of the celts.

In these three instances the polished celts accompany interments by cremation, and probably belong to a late period of the Stone Age in Britain. They have, however, been frequently found with the remains of unburnt bodies. In one of the banks of an ancient settlement near Knook Castle, Upton Lovel, Sir R. Colt Hoare[486] discovered a skeleton with its head towards the north and at its feet a fine black celt. In a barrow about seven miles east of Pickering,[487] besides other interments is said to have been one of a skeleton with the head towards the south, and a “beautiful stone adze or celt, 3 1∕2 inches long, wrought in green basalt, and a very elaborately chipped spear of flint, near four inches long, near its right hand.”

In another barrow in the same district[488] the skeleton was accompanied by “a very small celt or chisel of grey flint, smoothly rubbed, and a plain spear-head of the same material.”

In another barrow on Elton Moor, Derbyshire,[489] there lay behind the skeleton a neatly ornamented “drinking cup,” containing three pebbles of quartz, a flat piece of polished iron ore, a small celt of flint, with a rounded instead of a cutting edge, a beautifully chipped cutting tool, twenty-one circular-ended instruments, and seventeen rude pieces of flint.

In Liffs Low, near Biggin,[490] Mr. Bateman found a skeleton in the |149| contracted position, and with it two flint celts beautifully chipped and polished at the cutting edges; two flint arrow-heads delicately chipped, two flint knives polished on the edge, and one of them serrated on the back to serve as a saw; numerous other objects of flint, some red ochre, a small earthenware cup, and a hammer-head of stag’s horn.

In Cross Low, near Parwich,[491] a fragment of a celt and a small piece of chipped flint were with a human skeleton in a cist; and a kind of flint axe or tomahawk is reported to have been similarly found in a barrow near Pickering.[492]

In the Gospel Hillock barrow, near Buxton, Captain Lukis, F.S.A., found near the shoulder of a contracted skeleton, a polished flint celt, of which an engraving is given in the Reliquary.[493]

In what appears to have been a tumulus at Seaford,[494] Sussex, celts both whole and broken, and other forms of worked flint, were found, but the account given of the exploration is rather confused.

It will be observed that in these cases stone celts accompany the earliest form of interment with which we are acquainted, that in which the body is deposited in the contracted position. The reason why bodies were interred in that posture appears to be that it was in all probability the usual attitude of sleep, at a period when the small cloak of the day must generally have served as the only covering at night.

In Scotland stone celts seem to be of frequent occurrence in cairns. I have one, already mentioned,[495] which is said to have been found with four others in a cairn on Druim-a-shi, near Culloden.

Three others, of which two have been already described,[496] were discovered in a cairn in Daviot parish, Inverness, together with a cylindrical implement, possibly a pestle, and are now in the National Museum at Edinburgh. Not improbably my specimen came from the same cairn.

Another[497] was found in the Cat’s Cairn, Cromartyshire. A second,[498] pointed at the butt, is said to have been found in a “Druidical circle,” Aberdeenshire. A third,[499] of black flint, from the parish of Cruden, Aberdeenshire, would seem to have accompanied an interment, as with it was found a necklace of large oblong beads of jet, and rudely shaped pieces of amber.

None, however, of these instances afford any absolute testimony as to their exact or even approximate age, unless, indeed, the jet and amber, if they really accompanied the flint celt, point in that case to a date at all events not far removed from that of the bronze objects with which such necklaces have frequently been found.

In the other cases of interments in barrows, however ancient they may be, it seems probable that they are not those of the earliest occupants of this country, by whom polished stone celts, or those of the same character rough hewn only, were in use. The labour bestowed in the formation of the graves and the erection of the barrows must |150| have been immense, and could hardly have been undertaken until a stage of civilization had been reached higher than that of some of the ruder savage races of the present day.

It may be mentioned that stone celts are not unfrequently found in the soil of which barrows are composed, but in no way connected with the interments in the barrow.

There are a few instances of the finding of these instruments, not in association with interments, where the circumstances under which they have been discovered testify to a great, though still indeterminate antiquity. One, for instance, of greenstone, in the Museum of the Society of Antiquaries, is stated to have been “found deep in the clay whilst digging the Chelsea Waterworks at Kingston.”[500] Others in a sand-bed near York[501] were 6 or 7 feet below the surface, and nearly a quarter of a mile from the river which is thought to have deposited the sand.

In Wilson’s “Prehistoric Annals of Scotland”[502] is recorded the finding of a greenstone celt in a primitive canoe, formed of a hollowed trunk of oak, at a depth of 25 feet from the surface, at Glasgow; and in the Norwich Museum is one of brown flint, ground all over, 4 1∕4 inches long, similar to Fig. 54, but with facets towards the edge, as if from repeated grinding, which is stated to have been found fixed in a tree in the submarine forest at Hunstanton, by the Rev. George Mumford, of East Winch, in the year 1829.

* * * * *

On the whole evidence it would appear, from the number of implements of this class which has been discovered, from the various characters of the interments with which they are associated, and from the circumstances under which they have been found, that these stone celts must have been in use in this country during a long period of years; though we still revert to our first confession, that it is impossible to determine at how early a date this period commenced, or to how late a date it may have extended. If, however, the occupation of this part of the globe by man was continuous from the period of the deposit of the old River-gravels unto the present day, it seems probable that some of these implements may claim an almost fabulous antiquity, while in certain remote districts of Britain into which civilization made but a tardy approach, it is possible that their use may have lingered on to a time when in other parts of the country, owing to the superiority and abundance of metallic tools, these stone hatchets had long fallen into disuse.

Instances of this comparatively late use of stone celts appear to be afforded by some of the discoveries made in the Orkney and Shetland Isles; and it is doubtful whether in Ireland the use of |151| stone implements did not survive in some parts of the country to a far more recent date than would at first sight appear probable. I have, however, remarked on this subject elsewhere.[503] Sir Arthur Mitchell’s book, “The Past in the Present,” may also be consulted.

The methods in which these instruments were used and mounted must to some extent have varied in accordance with the purposes to which they were applied. In describing the forms, I have pointed out that in some cases they were used as axes or hatchets, and in other cases as adzes, and that there are some celts which not improbably were used in the hand without any handle at all, or else were mounted in short handles, and used after the manner of chisels or knives.

The instances of their being found in this country still attached to their handles are rare. In the case of the celt found near Tranmere,[504] Cheshire, and now in the Mayer Museum at Liverpool, “the greater part of the wood had perished, but enough remained to show that the handle had passed in a slightly diagonal direction towards the upper end of the stone.” In the Christy Collection is a large felstone celt 12 1∕4 inches long and 3 1∕4 inches broad, of the same section as Fig. 43, slightly flattened at the sides, on the face of which the mark of the handle is still visible, crossing it obliquely near the middle. This specimen was found at Pentney, Norfolk. Similar marks may not improbably be observed on other specimens, like that from Drumour already mentioned at page 119.

In the Solway Moss, near Longtown, a hafted hatchet was found by a labourer digging peat, at the depth of rather more than six feet, but the handle appears to have been broken, even at the time when the sketch was made from which the woodcut |152| given in the Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries[505] was engraved, which is, by permission, here reproduced. The instrument is now in the British Museum, but the haft, in drying, has, unfortunately, quite lost its form, and is still further broken. The process of preserving wood when in the tender condition in which it is found after long burial in peat was probably not known at the time. It has been adopted with great success by Mr. Engelhardt in preserving the wooden antiquities from the Danish peat bogs, and consists in keeping the objects moist until they have been well steeped, or even boiled, in a strong solution of alum, after which they are allowed to dry gradually, and are found to retain their form in a remarkable manner.

It is probably owing to the broken and distorted condition of the wood that the sketch was inaccurate as to the position of the blade with regard to the handle, for the mark of the wood where it was in contact with the stone is still visible, and proves that the central line of the blade was inclined outwards at an angle of about 100° to the haft, instead of being nearly vertical, as shown. The edge of the hatchet is oblique to nearly the same extent as the inclination of the blade to the haft. It would seem from this, that the obliquity of the edge was in some cases connected with the method of hafting, and not always, as suggested by Nilsson,[506] the result of the blade being most worn away in the part farthest from the hand holding the shaft.

The preservation of the wooden handle has been more successfully effected in the case of the celt shown in Fig. 92, engraved from a photograph kindly supplied me by Mr. R. D. Darbishire, F.G.S. It is figured on a larger scale in the Archæologia,[507] where all the circumstances of the discovery are set forth in detail. The axe was found, in the year 1871, in peat which had once formed the bed of a small lake, known as Ehenside Tarn, near Egremont, in Cumberland, which has now been drained. With it were found another haft of the same character, and several stone celts, one of them 14 1∕2 inches in length, with the sides but slightly curved, and almost equally broad at each end. Some wooden paddles and clubs formed of beech and oak, pottery and other objects, were also found. The farmer who cultivates the former bed of the lake had previously discovered some stone antiquities which were brought under the notice of Sir Wollaston Franks, |153| who induced Mr. Darbishire to make the search which was so amply rewarded. The haft is formed of a hard root of beech-wood, and has been most carefully carved, the surface exhibiting alternate cuts and ridges forming small concave facets about 1∕8-inch apart, and arranged spirally. The other haft for a celt is of oak-wood, and is not so well preserved. It will be noticed that the end of the beech-wood handle has originally been recurved, possibly with a view of steadying the butt-end of the celt.

Curiously enough, in the outline of a celt in its handle, carved on the under side of the roof-stone of a dolmen, known as La Table des Marchands, near Locmariaker, Brittany,[508] the end of the handle seems also to be curved back beyond the socket for the blade, which however it does not touch. At the other end of the handle there is a loop like a sword guard, for the insertion of the hand. There is some little difficulty in determining the exact form of this incised carving, as the lines are shallow, and the light does not fall upon them. I speak from a sketch I made on the spot in 1863. Other such representations occur in Brittany.[509]

In a paper[510] on a neolithic flint weapon in a wooden haft, Mr. C. Dawson has given an account of a discovery made by Mr. Stephen Blackmore, a shepherd of East Dean, near Eastbourne, of a flint hatchet at Mitchdean. It was lying in its wooden haft which was perfectly carbonized, but Mr. Blackmore made a |154| drawing of it, apparently from memory. He describes the blade, which seems to have been unground, as lying in a horizontal groove cut in one side of the shaft, which was 2 feet 6 inches long. At one end of the shaft were two projections supposed to serve for holding the ligatures by which the blade was attached, and nearer the hand were a number of grooves running round the haft. Neither the description nor the drawings of this and other objects found with it are such as to inspire complete confidence.

About 1822, in sinking a well at Ferry Harty, Isle of Sheppey,[511] there were found, according to newspaper reports, the remains of a hut, two skeletons, and “flints and hard stones, apparently intended for axes and cutting implements, with handles of wood quite complete and in good preservation.” Nothing farther seems to be known of this discovery.

At Ervie,[512] near Glenluce, Wigtownshire, a celt of indurated clay-stone in form like Fig. 77 (8 inches) was found, which shows a band of dark colour about 1 1∕2 inch wide and about 2 inches from the butt-end, crossing it at an angle of about 20°. This band probably shows the position of the haft in which the blade was fixed. Another celt from Glenshee, Forfarshire, likewise in the Edinburgh Museum, shows a fainter mark of the kind. On a third from Dolphinton,[513] Lanarkshire, the mark is very distinct and at a right angle to the axis of the blade. Montelius[514] mentions a Swedish specimen, and A. de Mortillet[515] a French one of flint similarly marked.

In the Museum of the Royal Irish Academy[516] is a drawing of a celt in its handle (which is apparently of pine) found in the county of Monaghan. This handle was 13 1∕2 inches long, and more clumsy at the socketed end than that from Solway Moss. The woodcut given by Sir W. Wilde is here, by permission, reproduced as Fig. 93.

Another nearly similar specimen was discovered near |155| Cookstown,[517] in the county of Tyrone. What may be the haft of a stone hatchet was found in another Irish crannog.[518] Another is in the collection of General Pitt Rivers, F.R.S. Some of the hatchets from the Swiss Lake-dwellings were hafted in a similar manner. In one such haft, formed of ash, from Robenhausen,[519] the blade is inclined towards the hand; in another, also of ash, the blade is at right angles to the shaft.[520] Some of these club-like hafts resemble in character those in use for iron blades in Southern and Central Africa.[521] The copper or bronze axes of the Mexicans[522] were hafted in the same manner.

A method of hafting, which implies fixity of residence, is said to have been in use among the Caribs[523] of Guadaloupe. The blade of the axe had a groove round it at the butt-end, and a deep hole having been cut in the branch of a growing tree, this end of the blade was placed in it, and as the branch grew became firmly embedded in it, the wood which grasped it having formed a collar that filled the groove. The Hurons[524] are said to have adopted the same plan.

I have engraved in Fig. 94, an extremely rude example of hafting by fitting the blade into a socket, from an original kindly lent me by the late Mr. Thomas Belt, F.G.S., who procured it among the Indians of the Rio Frio, a tributary of the San Juan del Norte in Nicaragua. The blade is of trachyte entirely unground and most rudely chipped. The club-like haft is formed of some endogenous wood, and has evidently been chopped into shape by means of stone tools.

In these instances Clavigero’s[525] remark with regard to the copper |156| or bronze axes of the Mexicans holds good; they are like “those of modern times, except that we put the handle in an eye of the axe while they put the axe in an eye of the handle.” A similarly hafted hatchet with the blade ground is in use among the Botocudo Indians. In the Island of New Hanover[526] the axe blade is inserted about the middle of the club-like haft. Some hatchets from the Admiralty Islands[527] are curiously like those from the Swiss |157| Lake-dwellings. Excessively long hafts in which the blades are let into a socket are occasionally in use among the Chamacocos[528] of south-east Bolivia.

Many stone and metallic axes in use among other modern savages are hafted in much the same manner by insertion in a socket. In some instances it would appear as if the hole for receiving the stone did not extend through the haft, but was merely a shallow depression—even a notch. Such seems to be the case with a war-axe of the Gaveoë Indians of Brazil in the British Museum, figured in the Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries,[529] and here, by permission, reproduced, as Fig. 95. Some of their axes have longer hafts. In the Over Yssel Museum is a Brazilian stone axe with a blade of this kind, which is said to have been used in an insurrection at Deventer[530] in 1787.

The “securis lapidea in sacrificiis Indorum usitata,” engraved by Aldrovandus,[531] seems to have the blade inserted in a socket without being tied, but in most axes of the same kind the blade is secured in its place by a plaited binding artistically interlaced. The stone axe said to be that of Montezuma II., preserved in the Ambras Museum at Vienna, is a good example of the kind.[532] I have engraved it as Fig. 96, from a sketch I made in 1866.

In some cases the whole handle is covered with the binding. Two such in the Dresden Historical Museum are engraved by Klemm.[533] Others have been figured by Prof. Giglioli.[534]

Some of the war-axes (called taawisch or tsuskiah) in use among the natives of Nootka Sound[535] are mounted in this manner, but the socket end of the shaft is carved into the form of a grotesque human head, in the mouth of which the stone blade is |158| secured with cement, as in Fig. 97. In another instance the handle is carved into the form of a bird[536] and inlaid with mother-of-pearl, or, more properly speaking, shell of haliotis. The blade of basalt projects from the breast of the bird, the tail of which forms the handle. In some the blade goes right through the handle, so as to project equally on both sides of it, and is sharpened at both ends.

The socket in all these handles is usually at some little distance from their end, but even with this precaution, the wedge-like form of the celt must have rendered them very liable to split. It was probably with a view of avoiding this, that the intermediate socket of stag’s horn, so common in the Lake-dwellings of Switzerland, was adopted. The stone was firmly bedded in the horn, the end of which was usually worked into a square form, but slightly tapering, and with a shoulder all round to prevent its being driven into the wood. In the annexed woodcut (Fig. 98) is shown one of these sockets with the hatchet inserted. It was found at Concise, in the Lake of Neuchâtel. An analogous system for preventing the stone blade from splitting the haft was adopted in Burma, Cambodia, |159| and Eastern India, but the shoulders were there cut in the stone-blades themselves. One of the Swiss instruments in its complete form is shown in Fig. 99, which I have copied from Keller.[537] It was found at Robenhausen, and the club-like handle is of ash. Several other specimens are engraved by the same author and Professor Desor,[538] and by other more recent writers.

In some instances the stone was inserted lengthways[539] into the end of a tine of a stag’s horn at the part where it had been severed from the antler, so as to form a sort of chisel.[540] In other cases the socket was worked through the tine, and the stone blade fixed in it after the manner of an axe, though the handle was too short for the tool to be used for chopping. Some wooden handles[541] are also but a few inches long, so that the celts mounted in them must have been used for cutting by drawing them along the object to be cut.

Such stag’s-horn sockets have occurred, though rarely, in France. M. Perrault found some in his researches in the Camp de Chassey, |160| (Saône et Loire).[542] Some seem to have been found at Vauvray,[543] in making the railway from Paris to Rouen. Others were discovered in company with arrow-heads, celts, and trimmed flakes of flint, in the Dolmen,[544] or Allée couverte, of Argenteuil (Seine et Oise). These are now in the Musée de St. Germain. Others were found in a cavern on Mont Sargel (Aveyron).[545] They occasionally occur in Germany. One from Dienheim is in the Central Museum at Mayence.

Discoveries of these stag’s-horn sockets for stone tools in England seem to be extremely rare. Mr. Albert Way describes one, of which a woodcut is given in the Archæological Journal.[546] It is formed of the horn of the red deer (which is erroneously described as being extinct), and is said to have been found with human remains and pottery of an early character at Cockshott Hill, in Wychwood Forest, Oxfordshire. It seems better adapted for mounting a small celt as a chisel, like that of bronze found in a barrow at Everley,[547] than for forming part of a hatchet. Mr. Way[548] cites several cases of the discovery of these stag’s-horn sockets in France and elsewhere on the continent of Europe. I may add, by way of caution, that numerous forgeries of them have been produced at Amiens. In some of the genuine specimens from the peat of the valley of the Somme,[549] the stone was fixed in a socket bored in one end of the piece of stag’s horn, and the shaft was inserted in another hole bored through the horn. M. Boucher de Perthes describes the handle of one as made of a branch of oak, burnt at each end.

An example of this method of mounting is given in Fig. 99A. The original was found at Penhouet, Saint Nazaire sur Loire,[550] in 1877. The length of the haft is 19 1∕2 inches. A fine socket with the blade still in it, but without the shaft, has been figured by the Baron Joseph de Baye.[551] It was found in La Marne, in which department funereal grottoes have been discovered, at the entrances of which similar hafted axes were sculptured.

The socket discovered by the late Lord Londesborough in a barrow, near Scarborough,[552] appears to have been a hammer, |161| although he describes it as a piece of deer horn, perforated at the end, and drilled through, and imagined it to have been the handle for one of the celts found with it, “much in the manner of that in the museum of M. de Courvale, at his Castle of Pinon, in France,” of which he sent a drawing to the Archæological Association. A stag’s-horn socket, with a transverse hole for the haft, and a circular socket bored in the end, from which the main body of the horn was cut off, was found in the Thames, near Kew, and is in the possession of Mr. Thomas Layton, F.S.A. In the circular socket was a portion of a tine of stag’s horn, so that it seems rather to have been intended for mounting such tines for use as picks, than for hafting celts.

A celt, mounted in a socket of stag’s horn, bored through to receive the wooden shaft, found in the Lake-dwellings at Concise, and in the collection of Dr. Clément, has been engraved by Desor;[553] and another, found near Aerschot,[554] in Belgium, by Le Hon. A hatchet, mounted in a socket of this kind, is figured by Dupont[555] |162| and Van Overloop.[556] Some of the stag’s-horn sockets are ornamented by having patterns engraved upon them.[557]

In New Guinea and Celebes a plan has been adopted of inserting the stone blade into the end of a tapering piece of wood, which is securely bound round to prevent its splitting. The small end of this fits in a hole in the club-like haft. An example is shown in Fig. 99B,[558] obligingly lent by the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. By turning round the pivot an axe is converted into an adze. In some New Guinea and New Caledonia adzes and axes the blade is let into a socket at a nearly right angle to the haft, and either forming part of it or attached to it. Such an adze is shown in Fig. 99C, kindly lent by the same Society. A similar method of hafting is in use in the Entrecasteaux Islands.[559]

Some ingenious suggestions as to the probable method of mounting stone implements in ancient times have been made by the Vicomte Lepic.[560] With a polished Danish flint hatchet 8 inches long, hafted in part of the root of an oak, an oak-tree 8 inches in diameter was cut down without injury to the blade.

Another method of hafting, adopted by the Swiss Lake-dwellers for their stone hatchets, is described by Dr. Keller,[561] from whose work I have copied the annexed woodcut, Fig. 100. |163|

The haft was usually formed of a stem of hazel, “with a root running from it at right angles. A cleft was then made in this shorter part, forming a kind of beak in which the celt was fixed with cord and asphalte.” A woodcut of a handle of the same character, found near Schraplau, in company with its stone blade, is given by Klemm,[562] and is here reproduced as Fig. 101. A handle of much the same kind, consisting of a shaft with a branch at right angles to it, in which was fixed a flint axe, was found with a skeleton and a wooden shield in a tumulus near Lang Eichstätt, in Saxony,[563] and has been engraved by Lindenschmit. Another is said to have been found at Winterswyk.

The discovery in the district between the Weser and the Elbe of several stone hatchets mounted in hafts of wood, stag’s-horn, and bone, has been recorded by Mr. A. Poppe,[564] but the authenticity of the hafting seems to me open to question. The compound haft of a stone axe, said to have been found at Berlin,[565] is also not above all suspicion. The handles of bronze palstaves, found in the salt mines near Salzburg, Austria, are forked in the same manner as Figs. 100 and 101. One of them, formerly in the Klemm Collection, is now in the British Museum.

The same system of hafting has been in use among the savages in recent times, as will be seen from the annexed figure of a stone adze from New Caledonia,[566] Fig. 102, lent to me by the late Mr. Henry Christy. Another is engraved in the Proceedings of the Society of |164| Antiquaries of Scotland.[567] Several other varieties of New Caledonian and Fiji handles have been engraved by M. Chantre.[568] In some countries, probably in consequence of the difficulty of procuring forked boughs of trees of the proper kind, the wood which forms the socket for the blade is bound on at the desired angle to the end of the wooden handle. An adze of stone from the Caroline Islands, thus mounted, is engraved in the Comptes Rendus;[569] and a |165| handle of this kind from North America, but with a small iron blade, is figured by Klemm.[570]

We are left in a great degree to conjecture as to the other methods of mounting stone hatchets and adzes on handles in prehistoric times; but doubtless some besides those already mentioned were practised. A very common method among existing savages is to bind the blade of stone on to the face of a branch at the end of the handle, which in some cases projects upwards, and in others downwards, and is inclined at an angle more or less perpendicular to the handle.

Figs. 103 and 104 are kindly lent me by the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland.[571] The short-handled adze, Fig. 103, is one |166| used by the Schlalum or Clalam Indians, of the Pacific Coast, to the south of the Straits of De Fuca and on Puget’s Sound, to hollow out their canoes. The group, Fig. 104, exhibits various methods of attachment of stone adzes to their handles employed by the South-Sea Islanders.

The Australians occasionally mounted their tomahawks in much the same manner as that shown in the central figure. An example has been engraved by the Rev. J. G. Wood.[572] The right-hand figure probably represents an adze from the Savage Islands. Some Brazilian and Aleutian Island adzes are mounted in much the same fashion.

The jade adzes of the New Zealanders are hafted in a somewhat similar manner; but the hafts are often beautifully carved and inlaid. A fine example is in the Blackmore Museum, and a handle in the Christy Collection. I have also a haft with the original |167| jade blade, but the binding has been taken off. One of them is engraved by the Rev. J. G. Wood.[573] The axe to the left, in Fig. 104, as well as that in the centre, is from Tahiti. The axes from Mangaia, so common in collections, exhibit great skill in the mounting and in the carving of the handles. Some have been engraved by the Rev. J. G. Wood.[574] A ceremonial stone adze with a very remarkable carved haft from New Ireland[575] has been figured by Professor Giglioli.

In some instances the ligaments for attaching the stone blade against the end of the handle pass through a hole towards its end. A North American adze in the Ethnological Museum, at Copenhagen, is thus mounted, the cord being apparently of gut.

A similar method of mounting their adzes, by binding them against the haft, was in use among the Egyptians.[576] Although it is extremely probable that some of the ancient stone adzes of other countries may have been mounted in this manner, there have not, so far as I am aware, been any of the handles of this class discovered. I have, however, two Swiss celts of Lydian stone, and of rectangular section, found at Nussdorf and Sipplingen, in the Ueberlinger See, and on the flatter of the two faces of each, there is a slight hollow worn away apparently by friction, which was, I think, due to their having been attached against a handle in this manner. The blade in which the depression is most evident has lost its edge, seemingly from its having been broken in use. I have not up to the present time found any similarly worn surfaces upon British celts.

Another method of hafting adopted by various savage tribes is that of winding a flexible branch of wood round the stone, and securing the two ends of the branch by binding them together in such a manner as tightly to embrace the blade. A stone axe from Northern Australia thus hafted, is figured in the Archæologia,[577] whence I have borrowed the cut, Fig. 105. Another used by natives on the Murray river[578] has been figured by the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. This method of hafting has been mentioned by White,[579] who describes the binding as being effected by strips |168| of bark, and in his figure shows the two ends of the stick more firmly bound together.

Another example has been engraved by the Rev. J. G. Wood.[580] This mode is very similar to that in common use among blacksmiths for their chisels and swages, which are held by means of a withy twisted round them, and secured in its place by a ring.

It seems extremely probable that so simple a method may have been in use in early times in this country, though we have no direct evidence as to the fact. A “fancy sketch” of a celt in a withy handle will be found in the Archæologia.[581] It resembles in a singular manner the actual implements employed by the Ojibway Indians,[582] of which there is a specimen in the Christy Collection, engraved by the Rev. J. G. Wood.[583] Some of the other North American tribes[584] mounted their hatchets in much the same manner. A hatchet thus hafted is engraved by Schoolcraft.[585]

In some instances a groove of greater or less depth has been worked round the axes mounted in this manner, though undoubtedly British examples are scarce. An axe-hammer of diorite (13 inches), found near Newburgh,[586] Aberdeenshire, has a groove round it instead of the usual haft-hole. The blade engraved in the Archæological Journal[587] and found near Coldstream, Northumberland, is probably of Carib origin, like others which have also been supposed to have been British. Another from the Liverpool |169| Docks is mentioned by Mr. H. Ecroyd Smith.[588] In the British Museum are two such axes, and some other stone implements, found near Alexandria, but which probably are Carib, as would also seem to be those in the Museum of Douai,[589] on which are sculptured representations of the human face.

Stone axe-heads with a groove round their middle, for receiving a handle, have been found in Denmark,[590] but are of rare occurrence. The form has been found in the salt-mines of Koulpe,[591] Caucasus, and in Russian Armenia. The large stone mauls found so commonly in the neighbourhood of ancient copper-mines, in this and many other countries in both hemispheres, were hafted much in the same manner as the Australian axe.

In other cases axe-heads are mounted by being fixed in a cleft stick for a handle, the stick being then lashed round so as to secure the stone and retain it in its place. This method was employed by some of the North American Indians,[592] and the aborigines in the colony of Victoria.[593] In the Blackmore Museum is a stone axe thus mounted, from British Guiana. There is a small hole through the butt which is carved into a series of small spikes. Others from Guiana[594] have notches at the sides to receive a cord which bound the haft in a groove running along the butt-end. The same form has been found in Surinam.[595] An Egyptian[596] stone hammer is mounted in much the same way. The notches practically produce lugs at the butt-end of the blade. I have an iron hatchet, edged with steel, brought home by the late Mr. David Forbes, F.R.S., from among the Aymara Indians of Bolivia, which is mounted in a stick cleft at the end. The blade is T-shaped at the butt, and is tied in such a manner, by means of a strip of leather, that the arms of the T rest on two of the coils, so as to prevent its falling out, while other two coils pass over the butt and prevent its being driven back, and the whole binds the two sides of the cleft stick together so as tightly to grasp the blade and prevent lateral or endways motion. The ancient Egyptian bronze hatchets were merely placed in a groove and bound to the handle by the lugs, and sometimes by the cord being passed through holes in the blade. The same shape is |170| found in flint hatchets ascribed by Professor Flinders Petrie[597] to the twelfth dynasty. What may be a stone hatchet mounted occurs in a painting at Medum.[598]

Another Australian method of mounting implies the possession of some resinous material susceptible of being softened by heat, and again becoming hard and tough when cold. This mode is exhibited in Fig. 106, which represents a rude instrument from Western Australia, now in my collection, engraved in the Archæologia.[599] It is hammer-like at one end, axe-like at the other, and is formed of either one or two roughly chipped pieces of basalt-like stone entirely unground, and secured in a mass of resinous gum, in which the handle is inserted. In most implements of this kind there appear to be two separate stones used to form the double blade, and these are sometimes of different kinds of rock. It would seem that the shaft, either cleft or uncleft, passed between them, and that the stones, when bound with string to hold them in their places, were further secured with a mass of the gum of the Xanthorrhæa or grass-tree.[600]

Such a method of hafting cannot, I think, have been in general use in this country, for want of the necessary cementing material, though, from discoveries made in Scandinavia, it would appear that a resinous pitch was in common use for fixing bronze implements to their handles; so that the practice may also have applied to those of stone. In the Swiss Lake-dwellings, bitumen was used as a cement for attaching stone to wood. In the case of the axes of the Indians on the River Napo,[601] Ecuador, the binding of |171| the blades, which are formed with lugs like those of Guiana, is covered with a thick coating formed of bees-wax and mastic.

Besides those that were hafted as axes or adzes, it seems probable that not a few of the implements known as celts may have been for use in the hand as cutting tools, either mounted in short handles or unmounted. There can be but little doubt that the tools, Fig. 83 and 83A, were thus used in the hand, as also the implement with a depression on each face (Fig. 87), and that with the notches at the side (Fig. 89); and they can hardly have been unique of their kind.

Dr. Lukis,[602] indeed, at one time expressed an opinion that the stone celt was not intended to be secured “in a handle, but was held in the hand and applied to particular uses which are not now evident, but to which neither the hammer nor the hatchet were applicable.” But in the face of the fact that numerous handles have since been found, such an opinion is no longer tenable except in a very limited sense.

Among modern savages we have instances of similar tools being used in the hand without the intervention of any haft, giving a form much like that of Fig. 83A, though among the Australians the butt-end is sometimes enveloped in a mass of resinous matter, so as to form a knob which fits the hand. According to Prinz Neuwied,[603] the Botocudos used their stone blades both unmounted in the hand and hafted as hatchets. The South Australians[604] and Tasmanians[605] likewise use celts in a similar manner.

There are cases in which the hatchet and haft have been formed from one piece of stone. Such a one, of chloritic stone, found in a mound in Tennessee,[606] is in outline like Fig. 92, and has a small loop for suspension at the end of the handle. Mr. Cursiter, of Kirkwall, has an instrument of the same kind from Orkney, formed of hard slate. In extreme length it measures 9 3∕4 inches. It cannot, however, be assigned to a very early date. For a comparison of celts from different countries Westropp’s “Prehistoric Phases”[607] may be consulted.

With regard to the uses to which these instruments were applied, they must have been still more varied than the methods of mounting, which, as we have seen, adapted them for the purposes of hatchets and adzes; while, mounted in other ways, or |172| unmounted, they may have served as wedges, chisels, and knives. The purposes which similar instruments serve among modern savages must be much the same as those for which the stone celts found in this country were employed by our barbarian predecessors. An admirable summary of the uses to which stone hatchets—the “Toki” of the Maori—are, or were applied in New Zealand, has been given by Dr. W. Lauder Lindsay.[608] They were used chiefly for cutting down timber, and for scooping canoes[609] out of the trunks of forest trees; for dressing posts for huts; for grubbing up roots, and killing animals for food; for preparing firewood; for scraping the flesh from the bones when eating, and for various other purposes in the domestic arts. But they were also employed in times of war, as weapons of offence and defence, as a supplementary kind of tomahawk.

For all these purposes stone celts must also have been employed in Britain, and some may even have been used in agriculture. We can add to the list at least one other service to which they were applied, that of mining in the chalk in pursuit of flint, as the raw material from which similar instruments might be fashioned.

|173|

VII. PICKS, CHISELS, GOUGES, ETC

I now come to several forms of implements which, though approximating closely to those to which the name of celts has been applied, may perhaps be regarded with some degree of certainty as forming a separate class of tools. Among these, the long narrow form to which, for want of a better name, that of “Picks” has been given, may be first described. It is, however, hard to draw a line between them and chisels.

* * * * *

An idea of the prevailing form will be gathered from Fig. 107, which represents a specimen in my own collection found at Great Easton, near Dunmow, Essex, and given me by Colonel A. J. Copeland, F.S.A. Its surfaces are partially ground, especially towards the upper end, which appears to have been pointed, though now somewhat broken. The lower end is chipped to a rounded outline, but this end is not ground, and the outer or more convex face of the implement, in one part shows the original crust of the flint.

In the Fitch Collection is a finer and more symmetrical specimen of the same kind from North Walsham. It is 7 1∕2 inches long, rather more than 1 inch wide, and 7∕8 inch thick. It is polished nearly all over, both faces are ridged, so that it is almost rhomboidal in section, though the angles are rounded; one face is curved lengthways much more than the other, which is nearly straight. At one end it is ground to a semicircular edge, but at the other it is merely chipped, and still shows part of the original crust of the flint. Another implement of this character, but 11 1∕2 inches long, and 2 7∕8 inches wide in the broadest part, was found at Melbourn,[610] Cambridgeshire, and was in the collection of the late Lord Braybrooke. |174|

I have seen another nearly 6 inches long, but little polished, and almost oval in section, which was found at Melton, near Woodbridge, Suffolk. This also is blunt at one end, and ground to a semicircular edge at the other. A fragment of a tool of this class, found near Maidenhead, is in the Geological Museum in Jermyn Street. Another, more roughly chipped out and but partially polished, was found on Mount Harry, near Lewes, and is preserved in the Museum in that town. It is narrow at one end, where it is ground to a sharp edge.

The late Mr. H. Durden, of Blandford, had another, found on Iwerne Minster Down, Dorset, 5 1∕2 inches long and 1 1∕4 inches broad, more celt-like in type. One face is more convex than the other; the sides are sharp, and one end is squarer than the other, which comes to a rounded point.

In my own collection is one of oval section (5 inches), polished nearly all over, from Burwell Fen, Cambridge; another (4 3∕8 inches), much polished on the surface, is from the Thames at Twickenham. A third, from Quy Fen, Cambridge (4 7∕8 inches), is rather broader in its proportions, and of pointed oval section. A fourth, from Bottisham Fen (4 3∕4 inches), has a narrow segmental edge, and is rounded at the butt, where it is slightly battered. These may perhaps be regarded as chisels.

In the Greenwell Collection is what appears to be a fragment of a chisel, still about 4 inches long, found at Northdale, Bridlington. The same form of implement is found in France. I have a fragment of one which was found by M. Dimpre, of Abbeville, in the old encampment known as the Camp de César, near Pontrémy.

In the case of some very similar implements of flint from Scandinavia it is the broad end that is usually sharp, though some are entirely unground.

Occasionally these implements occur in this country in the same unpolished condition, like Fig. 108, from the neighbourhood of Bury St. Edmunds. This also presents on the more highly ridged face the same curvature in the direction of its length as is to be observed on the polished specimens, and the pointed end seems the sharper and the better adapted for use.

I have a fine unground specimen (6 inches) from Feltwell, Norfolk, and another (4 1∕2 inches) from Chart Farm, Ightham, Kent, given to me by Mr. B. Harrison.

Unfortunately there are no indications by which to judge of the method of hafting such instruments. It appears probable, however, that the broader end may have been attached at the end of a handle, like those in Fig. 104, and that the tool was a sort of narrow adze or pick, adapted for working out cavities in wood, or it may be for |175| grubbing in the ground. Some rough instruments of this character are found in Ireland,[611] but are usually more clumsy in their proportions than the English specimens that I have figured. They are often of a sub-triangular section, and pointed at one or both ends, though rarely ground. I have, however, a tapering pointed tool of black chert, and belonging to the same class of implements, found in Lough Neagh.[612] It appears adapted for boring holes in leather or other soft substances.

A very remarkable implement belonging to the same group is shown in Fig. 109. It was found in the Fen country near Burwell, Cambridge, and was given me by the late Mr. J. W. Flower, F.G.S. At the broad end it is much like the instruments just described. A portion of both faces has been polished, the sides have been rounded by grinding, and though it has been chipped to an edge at the broad end, this also has been rendered blunt in the same manner, possibly with the view of preventing it from cutting the ligaments by which it was attached to a handle. The narrow end is ground to a chisel edge, which is at right angles to that of the broad end. In form and character this chisel end is exactly like that of a narrow “cold chisel” of steel, in use by engineers. Whether it was used as a narrow adze or axe, or after the manner of a chisel, it is difficult to say.

Fig. 110 is still more chisel-like in character. It is of flint weathered white, but stained in places by iron-mould, from having been brought |176| in contact with modern agricultural implements, while lying on the surface of the ground. It was found at Charleston, near Bridlington. It is unground except at the edge, where it is very sharp, and at one or two places along the sides, where slight projections have been removed or rounded off by grinding. The butt-end is truncated, but is not at all battered, so that if a hammer or mallet was used with it, without the intervention of a socket or handle, it was probably of wood. I have another specimen of rather smaller size from the same locality. It is, however, of porphyritic greenstone, and the butt-end, instead of being truncated, has been chipped to a comparatively sharp edge, which has subsequently been partially rounded by grinding. If used as a chisel at all, this implement must have been inserted in a socket.

Mr. H. Durden had a chisel of the same character found at Hod Hill, Dorset, 5 1∕2 inches long, and 1 3∕8 inches broad, with the sides ground straight.

The Greenwell Collection contains a flint chisel of this form 5 inches long and 1∕2 inch broad, found near Icklingham, Suffolk. It is ground at the sides as well as at the edge. Another, 4 3∕4 inches long, in the same collection, was found at North Stow, Suffolk. There is also a small chisel of hone-stone, 2 7∕8 inches long, found at Rudstone, near Bridlington, and another 3 3∕4 inches long, of subquadrate section, found in a barrow at Cowlam,[613] Yorkshire.

The form occurs in France. A beautiful chisel (7 inches), polished all over, and brought to a narrow edge at either end, was found in the Camp de Catenoy (Oise).[614] It is nearly round in section. Another, of dark jade-like material (4 inches), polished all over, was obtained from a dolmen at Pornic[615] (Loire Inférieure).

There are occasionally found some small chisels apparently intended for holding in the hand, as if for carving wood. One of these, from Dalton, on the Yorkshire Wolds, and in the collection of Messrs. Mortimer, is shown in Fig. 111. It is of grey flint, slightly curved longitudinally, nearly semicircular in section, with the side angles rounded, the butt truncated, but all its sharp angles worn or ground away, and with a circular edge slightly gouge-like in character. It has been ground transversely or obliquely on both faces, but the striæ from the grinding are at the edge longitudinal. I have a nearly similar tool from West Stow, Suffolk (5 1∕4 inches), and one from the neighbourhood of Bridlington, Yorkshire, but the butt-end is broken.

Another flint chisel, from the same neighbourhood, 3 1∕2 inches long and 7∕8 inch wide, in my collection, presents the peculiarity of having the butt-end ground to a sharp narrow semicircular edge, the principal edge at the other end being broader and less curved. There can be |177| little doubt of this having been merely a hand tool. A portion of the edge at the narrow end is worn away as if by scraping bone or something equally hard. This wearing away does not extend to the end of the tool. Another specimen from Yorkshire is in the Blackmore Museum.[616]

A chisel from Suffolk,[617] ground at both ends, has been figured.

The implement shown in Fig. 112 appears to belong to this same class of tools, though closely resembling some of those which will hereafter be described as “arrow-flakers,” from which it differs only in not showing any signs of being worn away at the ends. It is of flint neatly chipped, and was found at Helperthorpe, Yorkshire. I have another of the same form, but a trifle longer, found by Mr. W. Whitaker, F.R.S., near Baldock, Herts. Neither of them shows any traces of grinding.

A similar chisel of flint, square at the edge, and found near Londinières[618] (Seine Inférieure), is engraved by the Abbé Cochet.

Implements, which can without hesitation be classed as chisels, are rare in Ireland, though long narrow celts approximating to the chisel form are not uncommon. These are usually of clay-slate, or of some metamorphic rock. I have, however, specimens of oval section not more than an inch wide, and as much as 5 inches long, with narrow straight edges, which seem to be undoubtedly chisels. I do not remember to have seen a specimen in flint, those described by Sir W. Wilde[619] being more celt-like in character.

Narrow chisels, occasionally 10 and 12 inches long, and usually square in section, and either polished all over or merely ground at the edge, are of common occurrence in Denmark and Sweden.[620] They are sometimes, but more rarely, oval in section.

In Germany and Switzerland the form is scarce, but one from the Sigmaringen district is engraved by Lindenschmit,[621] and a Swiss specimen, in serpentine, by Perrin.[622]

Some of the small celts found in the Swiss lakes appear to have been rather chisels than hatchets or adzes, as they were mounted in sockets[623] bored axially in hafts of stag’s horn. In some instances the hole was bored transversely through the piece of horn, but even then, the tools are so small that they must have been used rather as knives or drawing chisels than as hatchets. Chisels made of bone are abundant in the Swiss Lake-settlements. They are also plentiful in some of the caverns in the French Pyrenees, which have been inhabited in Neolithic times. Several have also occurred in the Gibraltar caves. |178|

Among the Maories of New Zealand small hand-chisels of jade are used for carving wood and for other purposes. They are sometimes attached to their handles by a curiously intertwined cord,[624] and sometimes by a more simple binding. For the sketch of that shown in Fig. 113, I am indebted to the late Mr. Gay. The original is in the British Museum.[625] It will be observed that the end of the handle, which has been battered in use, is tied round with a strip of bark to prevent its splitting. The blade seems to rest against a shoulder in the handle, to which it is firmly bound by a cord of vegetable fibre. A stone chisel from S. E. Bolivia[626] is mounted in the same fashion, but the blade is shorter. The stone chisels in use in ancient times in Britain were, when hafted at all, probably mounted in a somewhat analogous manner.

* * * * *

Considering the great numbers of gouges or hollow chisels of flint which have been found in Denmark and Sweden, their extreme rarity in Britain is remarkable. It seems possible that the celts with an almost semicircular edge, some of which, when the two faces of the blade are not equally convex, are of a gouge-like character, may have answered the same purpose as gouges. It is to be observed that this class of celts is scarce in Denmark, where gouges are abundant; but possibly the ancient inhabitants of that country may have been more of a canoe-forming race than those of Britain, so that, in consequence, implements for hollowing out the trunks of trees were in greater demand among them. The best-formed gouges discovered in England, have, so far as I am aware, been found in the Fen country, where it is probable that canoes would be in constant use.

* * * * *

Two such, found in Burwell Fen, are preserved in the Museum of the Cambridge Antiquarian Society, one of which is shown in Fig. 114. The other is rather smaller, being 5 1∕4 inches long and 1 7∕8 inches broad. They are entirely unpolished, with the sides nearly straight and sharp, and one face more convex than the other. At the butt-end they are truncated, or show the natural crust of the flint. The cutting edge at |179| the other end is approximately at right angles to the blade, and is chipped hollow, so that the edge is like that of a carpenter’s gouge.

In Fig. 114A, is shown a fine gouge of white flint in my own collection. It was found in 1871 on the Westleton Walks, Suffolk, and was ceded to me by Mr. F. Spalding. It has been most skilfully and symmetrically chipped out, but both the surface and the edge are left entirely unground. What may be termed the front face is flatter than in the specimens last described. The cutting edge is more rounded.

The next specimen, Fig. 115, is less decidedly gouge-like in character. It is of grey flint, and was in the collection of the late Mr. Caldecott, of Mead Street, having been found at Eastbourne, Sussex. The sides are sharp, but rounded towards the butt, which is also round. A large flake has been taken lengthways off the hollow face, and it may be mainly to this circumstance rather than to original design, that the gouge-like character of the implement is due.

Most of the Danish gouges have a rectangular section at the middle of the blade, and the butt-end is usually truncated, and sometimes |180| shows marks of having been hammered, so that these implements were probably used without hafting and in conjunction with a mallet or hammer of wood or stag’s horn. Another and rarer form of gouge with a sharp elliptical section, tapers to the butt, and may have been used for paring away charred surfaces without the aid of a mallet. Some small examples of this class show, however, polished markings, as if from having been inserted in handles.

Under the head of gouges I must comprise a few of those celt-like implements already mentioned, which, without being actually ground hollow, yet, by having one of their faces much flatter transversely than the other, present at the edge a gouge-like appearance, somewhat after the manner of the “round-nosed chisels” of engineers. One of these was discovered in a barrow on Willerby Wold,[627] Yorkshire, by Canon Greenwell, F.R.S., though it was not associated with any burial.

It is shown in Fig. 116, and is formed of a light green hone-stone, carefully ground and even polished, and presents a beautifully regular and sharp cutting edge. It would appear to have been intended for mounting as a hollow adze rather than as a gouge, and would when thus mounted have formed a useful tool for hollowing canoes, or for other similar purposes.

In the Greenwell Collection is also another implement of the same character and material, but smaller, being 4 inches long and 2 3∕8 inches |181| broad. It was found at Ganthorpe, Yorkshire. The sides in this case are flat.

The implement shown in Fig. 117 has, when the convex face is seen, much the same appearance as Fig. 68. The other face, however, is slightly hollowed towards the middle longitudinally, and is nearly flat transversely, so that the edge presents a gouge-like appearance. It was found at Huntow, near Bridlington, and is in my own collection. The material is greenstone, the surface of which is somewhat decomposed, and seems in places to have been scratched by the plough or the harrow.

A considerable number of gouges of this bastard kind have been found in Ireland, and I have figured one from Lough Neagh.[628] A few of the Irish celts are actually hollowed at the edge, so as to become more truly gouge-like in character.

Besides occurring in abundance in Scandinavia, gouges, properly so called, are also found in Northern Germany and Lithuania. They also occur in Russia,[629] Finland, and Western Siberia, and even in Japan and Cambodia. |182|

One of flint, 5 inches long, from the neighbourhood of Beauvais (Oise), is in the Blackmore Museum. The same form has also been found in Portugal[630] and Algeria.[631]

A stone implement,[632] “a square chisel at one end and a gouge at the other,” was found in one of the Gibraltar caves.

In North America,[633] including Canada and Newfoundland, gouges formed of other varieties of stone than flint are by no means uncommon, and among the Caribs of Barbados, where stone was not to be procured, we find gouge-like instruments formed from the columella of the large Strombus gigas. On the western coast of North America, mussel-shell adzes are still preferred by the Ahts[634] to the best English chisels, for canoe-making purposes.

Some narrow bastard gouges, almost semicircular on one face and flat transversely on the other, but not hollowed, have been found in the Swiss Lake-settlements. I have one of diorite, 5 3∕4 inches long and 1 inch broad, from Sipplingen. The butt is roughened as if for insertion in a socket. A similar form is found in Germany. I have a specimen 9 1∕2 inches long found in the neighbourhood of Mainz.

A bastard form of gouge, mounted as an adze, is in use in the Solomon Islands. One tied to its haft with rattan is in the Christy Collection.

|183|

VIII. PERFORATED AXES

I now come to a very important class of antiquities, the stone axes and axe-hammers with a hole for the insertion of a shaft, like the ordinary axes and hammers of the present day. As to the method by which these shaft-holes were bored, I have already spoken in a previous chapter. I have also mentioned that many of them appear to belong to a time when bronze was already in use, at all events for knife-like daggers, and that they have in many countries shared with the more simply-formed celts the attribution of a heavenly origin as thunderbolts, together with the superstitious reverence due to their supernatural descent. I have, therefore, but little here to add beyond a classification and description of the various forms; but I may mention that the name by which such implements were “popularly known in Scotland almost till the close of last century was that of the Purgatory Hammer,” buried with its owner that he might have the wherewithal “to thunder at the gates of Purgatory till the heavenly janitor appeared.”[635]

They are for the most part made from metamorphic or volcanic rocks, and occasionally from quartzite, but I have never seen a British perforated axe made from ordinary flint, though hammers of this material are known. Stukeley,[636] indeed, mentions that in cleansing the moat at Tabley, near Knutsford, “they found an old British axe, or some such thing, made of large flint, neatly ground into an edge, with a hole in the middle to fasten into a handle; it would serve for a battle-axe.” Stukeley was probably mistaken as to the material; but there are in the Museum at Copenhagen one or two flint axes ground to an edge, the |184| shaft-holes in which are natural, and no doubt led to the stones being selected for the purpose to which they were applied. An artificially-perforated French specimen will subsequently be mentioned. Flints both naturally and artificially perforated, have also been occasionally converted into hammers and maces.

In Scandinavia and Northern Germany, perforated axes and axe-hammers are frequently known as Thor’s hammers, as already mentioned,[637] and some authors have maintained that they were in use for warlike purposes so late as eight or ten centuries after our era. Kruse,[638] however, has urged that though found in the neighbourhood of graves of the Iron Age in Livonia and Courland, they are never found in the graves themselves, and that their use is not mentioned in any ancient histories.

The principal forms may be classified as follows:—

1. Double-edged axes, or those with a cutting, or but slightly blunted edge at either end.

2. Adzes, or implements with the edge at right angles to the shaft-hole.

3. Axes with the edge at one end only, the hole being near the other end, which is rounded. These shade off into—

4. Axe-hammers sharp at one end, and more or less hammer-like at the other, the shaft-hole being usually near the centre.

To the weapons of the first of these classes the name of Amazon Axe has been applied by Professor Nilsson;[639] but the Scandinavian axes expanding considerably at the cutting ends, resemble the Amazonia securis of classical sculpture more than do the English specimens.

* * * * *

Fig. 118 represents a beautifully formed axe of the first class, in my own collection. It is of greenstone, and was found near Hunmanby, Yorkshire. The two sides are concave longitudinally, so that it expands towards the edges. They are also slightly concave transversely. The angles are rounded, and the edges are blunt, especially that at the shorter end. The shaft-hole is oval, and tapers slightly from each end towards the middle. It would appear to have been worked out with some sort of chisel, and to have been afterwards made smoother by grinding.

A broader weapon of granite, expanding more at the ends (5 1∕2 inches) was found in the Tay,[640] near Newburgh, Fife. A flatter specimen of porphyritic stone (4 inches) was found on the shore of Cobbinshaw Loch,[641] West Calder, Midlothian, in 1885. |185|

A specimen of nearly the same type, found near Uelzen, Hanover, is engraved by von Estorff;[642] another from Sweden, by Sjöborg.[643]

In the Museum at Geneva is a very similar axe of greenstone (5 1∕4 inches), found in the neighbourhood of that town. One of serpentine, much longer in its proportions (9 1∕4 inches), and with an oval shaft-hole, is in the Museum at Lausanne. It was found at Agiez, Canton de Vaud.

In the Collections[644] published by the Sussex Archælogical Society is a figure, obligingly lent to me, of a beautiful axe-head of this class (Fig. 119) found with the remains of a skeleton, an amber cup (Fig. 307), a whetstone (Fig. 186), and a small bronze dagger with two rivet holes, in an oaken coffin in a barrow at Hove, near Brighton. The |186| axe-head is said to be formed of some kind of ironstone, and is 5 inches long. The hole is described as neatly drilled. A weapon of the same kind (3 1∕2 inches) blunter at the ends and described as a hammer, was found with a deer’s-horn hammer, and a bronze knife in a barrow at Lambourn, Berks.[645] A small black stone axe-head of nearly similar form was found near the head of a contracted skeleton at a depth of 12 feet in a barrow in Rolston Field, Wilts.[646] A somewhat similar specimen, with the sides faceted and blunt at one end, has been engraved as having been found in Yorkshire.[647] It is, however, doubtful whether, like many other objects in the same plate, it is not foreign. The original is now in the Christy Collection.

A double-edged axe-head of basalt, injured by fire, and 4 1∕2 inches long, was found by the late Mr. Bateman, in a large urn with calcined bones, bone pins, a tubular bone laterally perforated, a flint “spear-head,” and a bronze awl, in a barrow near Throwley, Derbyshire.[648] This was the only instance in which he found a perforated stone axe accompanying an interment by cremation.

An axe-head of basalt, with a double edge to cut either way, was also dug up in the neighbourhood of Tideswell, Derbyshire.[649]

A specimen of this kind (5 inches), edged at both ends, but “the one end rather blunted and lessened a little by use,” was found near Grimley, Worcestershire, and is figured by Allies.[650]

I have a specimen (5 1∕8 inches), much weathered, which is said to have come from Bewdley in that county, but which may be that from Grimley.

An example, 5 inches long, engraved in the Salisbury volume[651] of the Archæological Institute, from a barrow on Windmill Hill, Abury, Wilts, is described as double-edged.[652]

The Danish and German axe-heads of this form have usually, but not always, one edge much more blunted than the other. Occasionally there is a ridge on each side at the blunt end, which shows that this thickening was intentional. A fine double-edged axe-head of this form from Brandenburg is engraved in the “Horæ Ferales.”[653] The double-edged form is found also in Finland.[654]

The form likewise occurs in France, but the faces are usually flatter. I have one from the Seine at Paris (5 1∕2 inches). Another from the |187| department of the Charente is engraved by de Rochebrune;[655] and a third from the department of Seine et Oise is in the Musée de St. Germain.[656] A fine example of the same form is in the Museum at Tours, and another in that of Blois. In the collection of M. Reboux[657] was a curious implement from the Seine, formed of flint, pointed at each end, and perforated in the middle. Another, in flint, from Mesnil en Arronaise[658] (Somme) (8 1∕2 inches), has been figured. The perforations may be natural, though improved by art. In my own collection is one of the finest specimens that I have ever seen. It is also from the Seine at Paris. It is 9 3∕4 inches long, and slightly curved in the direction of its length; on either side there is a long sunk lozenge, in the centre of which is the cylindrical shaft-hole, and the ends expand into flat semicircular blades about 2 1∕4 inches across. The material is a hard basaltic rock, and the preservation perfect. It was found in 1876.

A stone axe in the Museum of the Royal Institution at Swansea, and found at Llanmadock, in Gower, has been kindly lent me for engraving, and is shown in Fig. 120. It expands at the sharper end much more suddenly and to a much greater extent than does that from Hunmanby. The edge at that end, which is almost semicircular in outline, has suffered from ill-usage since it was discovered; the material of which it is made being felspathic ash, the surface of which has become soft by decomposition. The other and narrower end is flattened to about half an inch in width. The implement has already been engraved on a smaller scale.[659]

In Bartlett’s “History and Antiquities of Manceter, Warwickshire,”[660] is engraved an axe of the same character as this, but expanding at the blunter end almost as much, as it does at the edge, which is described as being very sharp. It is said to have been formed of the hard blue stone of the country, but “from age or the soil in which it has lain” to be “now coloured with an elegant olive-coloured patina.” It was found on Hartshill Common, in 1770, where a small tumulus had been cut through, “the bottom of which, was paved with brick, which by the heat of the fire had been nearly vitrified.” There is probably some mistake as to the bricks.

Another axe-head like Fig. 120, 8 inches in length, and more distinctly hammer-like at the narrow end, was found in the parish of Abernethy, Perthshire, and has been engraved by Wilson.[661]

In character these axes with expanded ends more nearly resemble some of the Scandinavian and North German types than do most of the other British forms. Broken stone axes expanding at the edge have been found on the site of Troy.

In the Museum of the Leeds Philosophical Society is a double-edged axe-head of a larger and coarser kind, which, is said to have been found near Whitby. Its authenticity was strongly vouched for by the late Mr. Denny, but I fear that it is a modern fabrication.

An implement of the same form, from Gerdauen, East Prussia, is |188| preserved in the Berlin Museum; and another of greenstone was found at Hallstatt.[662] A singular variety from the same spot has the edge at one end at right angles to that at the other.

A small sketch of a very remarkable curved blade, pointed at one end and with an axe-like edge at the other, is given in the Journal of the Archæological Association.[663] It is of greenstone, 11 inches long and 2 1∕2 inches across, and was found in Guernsey. By the kindness of the late Rev. W. C. Lukis, F.S.A., of Wath, I am enabled to give an engraving of the type in Fig. 121. A number of specimens have been found in the Channel Islands, to which the form seems peculiar.

* * * * *

The second class into which I proposed to divide these implements consists of adzes, or blades having the edge at right angles to the shaft-hole. Apart from a short notice by Mr. Monkman, I believe that attention was for the first time called in the former edition of this book, to the occurrence of this form in Britain. |189|

* * * * *

The specimen I have selected for engraving, as Fig. 122, gives a good idea of the typical character. It is of greenstone, with the shaft-hole tapering inwards from both faces, one of which is less convex than the other. It was found at Fireburn Mill, near Coldstream, Berwickshire, and is in the Greenwell Collection. In the same collection is another of similar character, but having the butt-end broken off and the edge more circular, found at Willerby Carr, in the East Riding of Yorkshire.

I have a smaller specimen (4 3∕4 inches), of a hard micaceous grit, found at Allerston, in the North Riding; as also a remarkably fine and perfect adze of porphyritic greenstone (6 3∕8 inches), ground to a |190| rounded edge at the butt, instead of being truncated like Fig. 122. The shaft-hole, like that of all the others, tapers inwards from both faces, in this instance from 1 3∕8 inch to 7∕8 inch. This specimen was found at South Dalton, near Beverley. An adze or hoe of the same kind, found at Wellbury,[664] near Offley, Herts, is in the collection of Mr. W. Ransom, F.S.A.

Another implement of the same class (9 inches), flat on one face, and much like Fig. 122, is in the National Museum at Edinburgh. It is of greenstone, much decomposed, and was found at Ormiston Abdie, Fife. A shorter specimen (3 3∕4 inches) sharpened at each end, found at Sandwick, Shetland, is in the fine collection of Mr. J. W. Cursiter, at Kirkwall.

Another, in outline more like the celt Fig. 57, though sharp at the sides, is also in the Greenwell Collection. It is formed of red |191| micaceous sandstone (6 3∕4 inches), and was found at Seackleton, in the North Riding of Yorkshire. A rough sketch of it has been published by Mr. Monkman.[665] In the same collection is another, rather narrower in its proportions, being 7 1∕2 inches long and 3 inches broad, found at Pilmoor, as well as one 6 inches long and 2 3∕8 inches broad, found at Nunnington.

Another, 5 1∕2 inches long, square at both ends, found near Whitby, is in the Museum at Leeds.

The form is known in Denmark, but is rare. A more celt-shaped specimen is engraved by Worsaae.[666] He terms it a hoe (hakke), and it is, of course, possible that these instruments may have been used for digging purposes.

Two short, broad hoes (hacken), of Taunus slate, found near Mainz, are given by Lindenschmit.[667] Another is in the Museum at Brunswick.

Some hoe-like, perforated stone implements from Mexico, are in the Ethnological Museum at Copenhagen. The so-called stone hoes of North America[668] are not perforated, though sometimes notched at the sides. Dr. Keller[669] has suggested that a circular perforated disc from one of the Swiss Lake-settlements may have been a hoe.

In the Museum of the Deutsche Gesellschaft at Leipzig, is a greenstone implement resembling these adzes or hoes at its broader end, but at the other, instead of being square or rounded, presenting an axe-like edge.

A narrow, thick adze of this character, flat on one face, rounded on the other, 4 1∕2 inches long, found at Scudnitz, near Schweinitz, Prussian Saxony, is in the Berlin Museum. A rather similar form has been found in Bohemia.[670]

An intermediate form between a hammer and an adze will be subsequently described at p. 231.

A small perforated adze in the Museum of the Cambridge Antiquarian Society, Fig. 123, is more truly celt-like in character, and appears, indeed, to have been made from an ordinary celt by boring a shaft-hole through it. It is formed of a hard, green, slaty rock, and was found in Burwell Fen. I believe that another, but larger, specimen of the same type, was found in the same district in Swaffham Fen.

The late Mr. G. W. Ormerod, F.G.S., brought under my notice another |192| specimen found, in 1865, at North Bovey, Devon. It is of greenstone, about 3 3∕4 inches long. The sides taper towards the butt-end, which is rounded, and the hole in the middle appears to be only about 1∕2 inch in diameter, but bell-mouthed at each face. It is now in the Museum at Exeter. Another (3 7∕8 inches) was found at Ugborough, Devon.[671]

The implement shown in Fig. 124 seems to be an unfinished specimen belonging to this class. It is formed of greenstone, portions of the natural joints of which are still visible on its surface. It seems to have been worked into shape by picking rather than by grinding; but the hole appears, from the character of the surface, to have been ground. Had it been continued through the stone, it would probably have been considerably enlarged in diameter, and if so, the implement would have been much weakened around the hole. It seems possible that it was on this account that it was left unfinished. It was found near Stourton, on the borders of Somerset and Wilts.

* * * * *

The third of the classes into which, for the sake of convenience, I have divided these instruments, consists of axe-heads with a cutting edge at one end only, the shaft-hole being near the other end, which is rounded.

* * * * *

Fig. 125 represents an elegant specimen of this class, found at Bardwell, in Suffolk, and formerly in the collection of Mr. Joseph Warren, of Ixworth, but now in my own. The material appears to be felstone. The edge is slightly rounded, the shaft-hole carefully finished, and the two faces ground hollow, probably in the manner suggested at p. 43. |193|

I have another made from a quartzite pebble (4 5∕8 inches) with the sides hollowed transversely, but rounded longitudinally, found with an urn on Wilton Heath, near Brandon, in 1873. The blunt end is bruised and flattened by wear. I have a second, also of quartzite (5 3∕8 inches), rounded in all directions, found near Ipswich, in 1865. It retains much of the form of the original pebble.

In the Museum at Newcastle is preserved a specimen very similar to Fig. 125, of mottled greenstone, beautifully finished; the sides are, however, flat and not hollowed. It is 6 1∕2 inches long, the faces are rounded, and the hole, which is about 7∕8 inch in diameter, tapers slightly towards the middle. It was found in the River Wear at Sunderland. Another of the same character, formed from a beautifully veined stone, accompanied a bronze dagger in a barrow near East Kennet, Wilts.[672]

I have another axe of the same kind, with both sides flat, 6 1∕8 inches long, formed of porphyritic greenstone, and found near Colchester. |194| Another, formed of basalt, 6 1∕4 inches long, the sides slightly hollowed, from Chesterford, Cambridge,[673] was in the possession of the late Mr. Joshua Clarke, of Saffron Walden.

Another, 5 inches long, was found in the Thames off Parliament Stairs, and passed with the Roach Smith Collection into the British Museum. One, 5 3∕4 inches long, from Cumberland, is in the Christy Collection.

One of sandstone (4 1∕2 inches) was discovered at Northenden,[674] Cheshire, in 1883.

In the Greenwell Collection is one of greenstone, 6 3∕4 inches long, found at Millfield, near Sunderland. The hole is somewhat oval, and tapers inwards from each side. There is also one of basalt, 4 1∕4 inches long, with an oval hole and slightly convex sides, from Holystone, Northumberland. The edge, as usual, is blunt.

An axe-head of this kind, from a chambered tumulus or dolmen at Craigengelt, near Stirling, Scotland, is engraved by Bonstetten.[675]

One with flat sides (6 1∕4 inches) was found in the Tay, near Mugdrum Island, Perth,[676] and another (7 inches) at Sorbie, Wigtownshire.[677]

Implements or weapons of this character occasionally occur in Ireland,[678] but the sides are usually flat.

The exact form is rare in Denmark and North Germany. Lindenschmit[679] engraves a thin specimen from Lüneburg. It occurs also in Styria. A specimen from Lithuania, more square at the butt, is engraved by Mortillet.[680] I do not remember to have met with it in France.

In one of the barrows on Potter Brompton Wold,[681] Yorkshire, explored by Canon Greenwell, accompanying an interment by cremation, he found a beautifully-formed axe-head of serpentine(?) the surface of which was in places scaling off from decomposition, arising from its having been partly calcined. A single view of it is given in Fig. 126. The hole is about 1 1∕4 inches in diameter on each side, but rather smaller in the middle. The cutting edge has been rounded as well as the angles round the sides, but this process has been carried to a greater extent on one than the other; possibly this was the outer side.

A somewhat similar, but rather broader, axe-head of basalt, 5 1∕4 inches long, was found by the late Mr. T. Bateman in a barrow called Carder Low,[682] near Hartington, in company with a small bronze dagger, and near the elbow of a contracted skeleton. |195|

Another, expanding rather more at the edge, from a barrow in Devonshire,[683] was in the Meyrick Collection.

A somewhat similar axe-head, more rounded at the butt and rather more expanded at the cutting edge, was found in Annandale in 1870, and was described to me by the late Mr. Joseph Clarke, F.S.A.

One of granite, much like Fig. 126, came to light in a cairn at Breckigoe,[684] Caithness.

In the same barrow at Rudstone,[685] near Bridlington, as that in which the block of pyrites and flint scraper, subsequently to be described (Fig. 223), were found, but with a different interment, Canon Greenwell discovered the beautifully formed axe-hammer shown in Fig. 127. It is of very close-grained, slightly micaceous grit, and presents the peculiarity of having the rounded faces slightly chamfered all round the flat sides. The edge is carefully rounded, and the broad end somewhat flattened. It lay behind the shoulders of the skeleton of an old man lying on his left side, with his right hand on his head, and his left to his face. Before the face, was a bronze knife 4 inches long, with a single rivet to fasten it to its handle, and close to the axe-hammer lay a pointed flint flake re-chipped on both faces. In a barrow at Sledmere[686] with burnt bones lay a weapon of this kind battered at the blunt end.

An axe-head (6 1∕4 inches), with convex faces, rounded at the butt, and with an oval shaft-hole, was dredged from the Thames at London,[687] and is now in the British Museum.

It seems almost indisputable that these elegantly formed axe-heads belong to the period when bronze was in use, and from their occurrence in the graves they appear to have formed part of the equipment of warriors. |196|

The careful manner in which their edges are blunted shows that they cannot have been intended for cutting tools, but that they must have been weapons of war. A blow from a battle-axe with a blunted edge would be just as fatal as if the edge had been sharp and trenchant, while the risk of accidental injury to the scantily-clothed warrior who carried the axe was next to none when the edge of the weapon was thus blunted. The practice of removing the edge by grinding was, no doubt, introduced in consequence of some painful experience.

Fig. 128 is of still more ornamental character, having a beaded moulding towards each edge of the faces and following the curvature of the sides. The drawing is taken from a cast in the Museum of the Society of Antiquaries, presented by Sir W. Tite. M.P.[688] The original is said to have been found near Whitby. A fine axe-head “of red granite, ornamented with raised mouldings,” was, however, found with |197| human bones near Borrowash, Derbyshire, in 1841,[689] and is in the Bateman Collection, now at Sheffield. To judge from the woodcut in the Catalogue, the cast must have been taken from this specimen.

“A very elegant axe-head, 5 inches long, of reddish basalt, beautifully wrought, with a slight moulding round the angles, and a perforation for the shaft,” is described by Mr. Bateman[690] as having been found on a barrow eleven miles E. of Pickering, Yorkshire.

Mouldings of various kinds occur on Danish and German axe-hammers of the Bronze Age,[691] but this form of small axe with a rounded butt is of rare occurrence. The longitudinal line in relief which occurs on the sides of some German battle-axes[692] has been regarded as an imitation of the mark left on bronze axes by the junction of the two halves of the mould. The small axe-heads from Germany[693] are wider at the butt, and more like Figs. 118 and 120 in outline.

The beautiful battle-axe, formed of fine-grained mica schist, found placed on burnt bones in a “Druidical” circle at Crichie, near Inverurie, Aberdeenshire,[694] and presented by the Earl of Kintore to the National Museum at Edinburgh, has deeply-incised lines round the margins of the hollow sides at the mouth of the shaft-hole. This weapon is 4 inches in length, and is considerably sharper at the broader end than at the other, though the edge is well rounded. For the loan of Fig. 129 I am indebted to the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. In general character this specimen approximates to a somewhat rare Irish form, shortly to be mentioned, of which I possess a |198| specimen. The battle-axe from the barrow at Selwood, Fig. 140, is also slightly ornamented by lines on the sides, and that from Skelton Moors, Fig. 139, is fluted.

Two axe-hammers of granite and greenstone (4 1∕2 and 5 inches) of much the same type as Fig. 129, but more elongated, so as in form to resemble Fig. 136, were found near Ardrossan,[695] Ayrshire.

An unfinished axe-head of the same kind was found at Middleton,[696] Stevenston, Ayrshire.

An axe-head of porphyritic greenstone (7 3∕4 inches long), from Stainton Dale, near Scarborough,[697] is said to resemble in form an Irish axe-head engraved in the Ulster Journal of Archæology.[698] If so, the sides through which the hole is bored were hollow, as in Fig. 129, and there was also a moulding round them. This Irish axe-head is formed of a kind of pale green hone-stone, and is now in the British Museum. Instead of incised lines there are raised flanges on each face, bordering the concave side in which is the shaft-hole. The length is 5 1∕4 inches, and the butt-end is half an oval, just flattened at the end. It was found in the river Bann.

Axe-heads of a much more clumsy character than any of those last described are of more frequent occurrence in this country. The one I have selected for illustration as Fig. 130, is rather small of its kind. It is made of greenstone, the surface of which has considerably suffered from weathering, and was found in draining at Walsgrave-upon-Sowe, near Coventry. It was presented to my collection by the late Mr. J. S. Whittem, F.G.S. The shaft-hole, as usual, tapers inwards from both sides; its surface is more polished than that of the exterior of the implement. A small portion of the end of the butt is flat, but this appears due to accident rather than design. I have a rather longer axe-head, of porphyritic greenstone, which was washed out of the ground by a brook at Ayside, near Newby Bridge, Windermere, and was given to me by Mr. Harrison, of Manchester. It is considerably rounded in both directions at the butt, the edge is narrow, and one side, probably the outer, much more rounded than the other. The edge is carefully ground, but farther up the face, the surface shows that it has been picked into form. The shaft-hole is much like that of Fig. 130.

I have another specimen from Plumpton, near Penrith (9 1∕2 inches), rounded at the butt, but unsymmetrical, owing to a natural plane of cleavage interfering with the shape, and, as it were, taking off a slice of the stone. The shaft-hole is oval, the longer diameter being lengthwise of the blade, and the edge is oblique. The sides are flatter than those of Fig. 130. In my collection are others from Mawbray and Inglewood Forest, Cumberland (7 1∕2 and 8 inches), and one (7 inches) from Cader Idris, Merionethshire. Another (10 inches) was found at Llanfairfechan,[699] Carnarvonshire, another at Llanidloes,[700] Montgomeryshire, and a third in Anglesey.[701] The late Mr. Llewellynn Jewitt, F.S.A., had a flatter and longer specimen of this form (10 inches), found at Winster, Derbyshire. Implements of this character, but often |199| approximating in shape to Fig. 131, have been found in considerable numbers, though as isolated specimens, in the North. One found in Aberdeenshire (8 1∕2 inches long), of this class, but with the butt-end slightly hollowed, and having a well-marked shoulder on each face, as if by continual reduction by sharpening at the edge, is engraved in the Archæological Journal.[702] One from Scotland[703] (10 1∕4 inches) was exhibited by the Marquis of Breadalbane at Edinburgh, in 1856, and one (12 inches) from Alnwick.[704] Others have been found at Tillicoultry Bridge,[705] Clackmannan; Kelton,[706] Kircudbrightshire; in Wigtownshire[707]; |200| Silvermine,[708] Torphichen, Linlithgow; and Laurie Street,[709] Leith; another from the coast of Scotland is engraved in Skelton’s “Meyrick’s Armour,”[710] but is there regarded as having been brought over by Danish invaders. Other Scottish[711] specimens are numerous. There are thirteen in the Grierson Museum, Thornhill, Dumfriesshire. One of the same form as the figure (9 3∕8 inches) was found at Dean,[712] near Bolton, Lancashire, and others at Hopwood and Saddleworth in the same county. One of grit (7 1∕2 inches) was found at Siddington,[713] near Macclesfield. Another (8 inches), found at Kirkoswald, Cumberland, is in the museum at Newcastle, together with a similar specimen from Haydon Bridge; and others have been found at Thirstone, Shilbottle, Barrasford,[714] and Hipsburn,[715] Northumberland; and in Yorkshire.[716] One (10 1∕2 inches) was found at Ehenside Tarn,[717] Cumberland. Others at Rusland, North Lonsdale, and Troutbeck. A long list of stone-hammers, &c., found in Cumberland and Westmorland, has been given by Chancellor R. S. Ferguson, F.S.A.,[718] and a similar list has been compiled for Lancashire and Cheshire.[719] They occur also in more southern districts. I have seen one (8 inches) from the neighbourhood of Glastonbury. Another of the same length was found on Dartmoor, near Burnt Tor. Others (8 1∕2 and 9 inches) from Ashbury and Holsworthy,[720] Devon, are in the Museum of the Plymouth Institute. One was found at Withycombe Raleigh,[721] Devon. A fine specimen (8 inches long), with the sides somewhat hollowed, was found at Tasburgh, Norfolk. Another of greenstone (5 1∕2 inches), and rather curved longitudinally, was found in the same parish. Other specimens from Norfolk are mentioned in the Norwich volume of the Archæological Institute. I have one of serpentine from Chatteris Fen, which has been broken diagonally, and had a fresh edge ground quite away from the middle. The Rev. S. Banks had one of hard sandstone (7 3∕4 inches), found in Cottenham Fen. Its faces are more parallel, so that the edge is more obtuse. I have seen one, found near Stourton (9 1∕2 inches), Somersetshire, straighter at the sides, and having the angles rounded. They occur in Leicestershire.[722] One (7 inches) from the Cemetery at Leicester, and one (9 1∕2 inches) from Barrow-on-Soar, are recorded. An axe of the same kind, but smaller, found near Imola, has been engraved by Gastaldi.[723]

Perhaps the more common variety, in Cumberland, is that which is somewhat flattened at the butt, like Fig. 131, and which is, more |201| properly speaking, an axe-hammer. This specimen was found near Bed Dial, Wigton, Cumberland, and is in my own collection. The two sides are nearly flat and parallel, and the edge appears to have been re-sharpened since the axe-head was first formed, as it is ground away to a shoulder a little below where it is perforated. It is formed of an igneous rock. A very symmetrical example, 8 1∕2 inches long, with the sides nearly flat, from Aikbrae, Culter, Lanarkshire, is engraved in the Journal of the Archæological Association.[724]

A very similar specimen, 11 inches long, found in a turf moss near Haversham, Westmorland, is engraved in the Archæologia,[725] as is |202| another from Furness.[726] Another, with the sides more parallel, and rounder at the end, 8 inches in length, was found near Carlisle upwards of a century ago, and forms the subject of an interesting paper by Bishop Lyttelton.[727] Two also were found at Scalby,[728] near Scarborough. In the Greenwell Collection are several implements of this character, obtained in the North of England. They are 8 to 9 inches long, and 4 to 5 inches broad. One (10 inches) is from Helton, in the parish of Chalton, Northumberland; and another, of nearly the same size and form as Fig. 131, from Castle Douglas, Kircudbrightshire; another of greenstone (6 inches) from Brompton Carr, Yorkshire; and others, varying in form, from Ousby Moor, Cumberland, and Heslerton Wold, Yorkshire. A fine example (8 inches), truncated at the butt, from Dunse Castle,[729] Berwickshire, has been figured.

In the British Museum are several axe-heads of this form. One, 9 inches long, of a porphyritic rock, is said to have been found in a barrow on Salisbury Plain. One, 12 inches long, is from Stone, Staffordshire, as well as another in which the boring is incomplete, there being only a conical depression on each side. A third, thinner (8 inches), was found near Hull. A fourth, of compact felspathic material, 8 1∕4 inches long, is from the parish of Balmerino, Fife. A fifth, of similar material, 8 inches long, is from Llanbrynmair, Montgomeryshire.[730] It is worked to a flat oval at the butt-end, but with the angles rounded. The hole, as usual, tapers inwards from each side, but is not at right angles to the central line of the axe. I have a fine implement of this class, but larger and narrower than the figure, and concave on the sides, so that the edge is wider than the butt. It is of basalt, much eroded on the surface, and was found at Hardwick, near Bishop’s Castle, Shropshire. It is 10 1∕2 inches long, about 4 1∕4 inches wide at the butt, where it is 3 inches thick. The shaft-hole is nearly 2 inches in diameter, and almost parallel; the weight, 8 1∕2 lbs.

One (9 1∕2 inches) was found at Grimley,[731] Worcestershire. Another, of porphyry, nearly triangular in outline (7 inches), from Necton, Norfolk, is in the Norwich Museum. The shaft-hole, in this case, is parallel, but in most, it tapers both ways, contracting from about 1 3∕4 or 2 inches on each face to about 1 1∕4 inches in diameter in the middle. One of greenstone (6 inches), found near Ely, has an oval hole.

The late Mr. Llewellynn Jewitt, F.S.A., had an axe-hammer of this class (7 1∕2 inches), but still more flattened at one end, found in Cambridgeshire. At the edge the faces form an angle of 45° to each other, and there is little doubt that the implement has lost much of its original length through continual sharpening. He also kindly lent me for engraving the curious axe-hammer shown in Fig. 132, and has made use of my wood-cut in his “Grave Mounds and their Contents.”[732] It is formed of a very fine-grained, hard, and slightly micaceous grit, and its weight exceeds 7 3∕4 lbs. It is somewhat rounded at the hammer-end, which appears to have lost some splinters by use, though the broken surface has since been partially re-ground. The blade is slightly curved longitudinally, and both the |203| outer and inner sides have been hollowed from the point, as far as the perforation. The faces have each four parallel grooves worked in them, so that they are, as it were, corrugated into five ribs, extending from near the edge to opposite the centre of the hole. The hollows on the sides also show two slight ribs parallel with the faces of the blade, the angles of which are rounded. The shaft-hole tapers slightly in both directions towards the centre, where it is about 1 3∕8 inch in diameter. |204| The grooves seem to have been produced by picking, but have subsequently been made smoother by grinding. It was found at a spot known as the Sand Hills, in Lord Middleton’s Park,[733] near Wollaton, Notts. The Rev. W. C. Lukis, F.S.A., had a closely similar specimen (10 inches), found at Jervaux, near Bedale, Yorkshire. It is not, however, fluted on the faces.

Some of these instruments are so heavy that they can hardly have been wielded in the ordinary manner as axes, though they may have served for splitting wood, either by direct blows or by being used as wedges. Bishop Lyttelton thought they might have been battle-axes, but Pegge[734] pointed out that they were too heavy for such a purpose or for use as missiles, and came to the conclusion “that these perforated stones were not originally applied to any warlike purpose, but rather to some domestic service, either as a hammer or beetle for common use.” Professor Nilsson,[735] at a later date, has arrived at the same conclusion, and considers them most suitable for being held in the left hand by a short handle, and driven into wood by blows from a |205| club held in the right hand. He has suggested for them the name of “handled wedges.” In some parts of France I have seen extremely heavy iron axes, much resembling these stone implements in form, used for splitting wood. It seems possible that in old times these heavy stone implements may also have been employed in agriculture.

Axes of this character, usually formed of greenstone, are very common in Denmark and Northern Germany. They are much rarer in France, partly, no doubt, in consequence of the less abundance of suitable material. They also occur in Russia[736] and in Italy.[737]

A small specimen of the same form but rather more square at the butt than Fig. 131, made of dark serpentine, and only 3 5∕8 inches long, was found at Tanagra, in Bœotia, and was formerly in the collection of Dr. G. Finlay,[738] of Athens.

* * * * *

Some of the forms last described, having square butt-ends, might, perhaps, with greater propriety, have been included in the fourth class into which I have proposed to divide these instruments, viz., axe-hammers, sharpened at one end and more or less hammer-like at the other, and with the shaft-hole usually about the centre.

* * * * *

One of the simplest, and at the same time the rarest varieties of this class, is where an implement of the form of an ordinary celt, like Fig. 69, has been bored through in the same direction as the edge. Fig. 133 represents such a specimen, in the collection of Messrs. Mortimer, of Driffield. It was found at Buckthorpe, Yorkshire, and is formed of close-grained greenstone. The butt-end is circular and flat, and the shaft-hole, which is oval, tapers considerably both ways.

An axe-hammer of diorite, of nearly similar form, found at Groningen, in the Netherlands, is in the museum at Leyden.

Another simple form is that exhibited in Fig. 134, taken from a specimen in greenstone found at Aldro’, near Malton, Yorkshire, and in the possession of Mr. Hartley, of Malton. Its principal interest consists in its having been left in the unfinished state, previous to its perforation. We thus learn that the same practice of working the axe-heads into shape before proceeding to bore the shaft-hole, |206| prevailed here as in Denmark. In that country numerous specimens have been found, finished in all respects except the boring, and in many instances this has been commenced though not completed. It would appear from this circumstance that the process of boring was one which required a considerable amount of time, but that it was most satisfactorily performed after the instrument had been brought into shape; the position of the hole being adjusted to the form of the implement, and not the latter to the hole. In the extensive Greenwell Collection is the cutting end of an axe which has been broken half-way across the hole, which, though commenced on both faces, was never finished. The conical, cup-shaped depressions produced by the boring instrument, extend to some depth in the stone, but are still 1∕4 inch from meeting. The fragment is 3 1∕8 inches long, and was found at Sprouston, near Kelso.

In the same collection is a small unfinished axe-head of greenstone, 4 inches long, in which the hole has not been commenced. It was found at Coxwold, in the North Riding of Yorkshire.

An unpierced axe-head of greenstone, 4 inches long, in form much like Fig. 136, but with the hollowed face shorter, was found in a grave in Stronsay, one of the Orkney islands, and is now in the National Museum at Edinburgh. There are slight recesses on each face, showing the spots at which the perforation was to have been commenced.

A perforated axe of serpentine, of the same character as Fig. 134, but wider at the butt, was found in the Thames, and is now in the British Museum. It is 4 inches long and has the peculiarity of being much thicker at the cutting end than at the butt; the two sides tapering from 1 1∕2 inch at the edge to 3∕4 inch at the butt.

A similar feature is to be observed in another axe of hornblende schist (5 3∕4 inches), and of rather more elongated form than Fig. 134, found at Cawton, in the North Riding of Yorkshire, and in the Greenwell Collection.

A partially-finished axe-head, with one side and about two-thirds of the width of the faces worked into form, is engraved in the “Horæ Ferales.”[739] It is not a British specimen, but its place of finding is unknown. Perforated hammers, in form much like Fig. 134 and 135, occurred among the early remains at Troy.[740]

A rather more elaborate form, having the two sides curved |207| longitudinally inwards, and the edge broader than the hammer-end, is shown in Fig. 135. The cutting edge is carefully removed, so that it was probably a battle-axe. The original, which is of porphyritic greenstone, was discovered by Canon Greenwell, in a barrow at Cowlam,[741] near Weaverthorpe, Yorkshire. It lay in front of the face of a contracted skeleton, the edge towards the face, and the remains of the wooden handle still grasped by the right hand. Connected with this grave was that of a woman with two bronze ear-rings at her head.

Another of much the same form, but of coarser work and heavier, was found near Pickering, and is preserved in the Museum at Scarborough.

I have seen a small axe of similar type, but with the edge almost semicircular, and the hole nearer the butt, found at Felixstowe, Suffolk. It is of quartzite, 4 1∕2 inches long. The hole, though 1 3∕4 inch in diameter |208| at the sides, diminishes to 1∕2 an inch in the centre. In this respect it resembles some of the hammer-stones shortly to be described.

Fig. 136 presents a rather more elaborate form, which is, however, partly due to that of the flat oval quartzite pebble from which this axe-hammer was made. The hammer-end seems to preserve the form of the pebble almost intact; it is, however, slightly flattened at the extremity. The original is preserved in the Greenwell Collection, and was found in a cist at Seghill,[742] near Newcastle, in 1866. The bones, by which it was no doubt originally accompanied, had entirely gone to decay. A Scotch example, made of basalt, the sides of which are much more concave, is shown in Fig. 136A, kindly lent by the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. It was found at Wick,[743] Caithness.

It was an axe-head somewhat of the character of Fig. 136, but sharper at the hammer-end, that was found in an urn, near Broughton in Craven, in 1675, and with it a small bronze dagger (with a tang and single rivet hole) and a hone. It is described and figured by Thoresby.[744] Hearne[745] regarded it as Danish. It is described as of speckled marble polished, 6 inches long and 3 1∕2 inches broad, with the edge at one end blunted by use. A nearly similar form (4 1∕2 inches) has occurred in Shetland.[746] What appears to be an unbored axe of this kind is in the Powysland Museum.[747] |209|

A still greater elaboration of form is exhibited in Fig. 137, from an implement found at Kirklington, Yorkshire, and in the Greenwell Collection. It is of basalt, worked to a flat oval at the hammer-end, and to a curved cutting edge at the other. The two sides are ground concave, and the shaft-hole is nearly parallel. This axe-hammer is of larger size than usual when of this form, being 8 inches in length.

Nearly similar weapons have been frequently found in barrows. |210| One such, of greenstone, about 4 inches long, was found by the late Mr. Charles Warne, F.S.A., in a barrow at Winterbourn Steepleton, near Dorchester, associated with burnt bones. He has given a figure[748] of it, which, by his kindness, I here reproduce, as Fig. 138. Another (4 inches) was found in a barrow at Trevelgue,[749] Cornwall, in 1872.

An extremely similar specimen, found near Claughton Hall, Garstang, Lancashire, has been figured.[750] It is said to have been found, in cutting through a tumulus in 1822, in a wooden case, together with an iron axe, spear-head, sword, and hammer. There must, however, be an error in this account; and as an urn, containing burnt bones, was found in the same tumulus with the Saxon or Danish interment, it seems probable that the objects belonging to different burials, primary and secondary in the barrow, became mixed during the twenty-seven years that elapsed between their discovery and the communication to the Archæological Institute. Another weapon of much the same shape, but 4 3∕4 inches long, and formed of dark greenstone, is in the British Museum. It was found in the Thames, at London. The process by which these hollow sides appear to have been ground will be described at page 266.

Sir R. Colt Hoare has engraved two axe-hammers of this form, but slightly varying in size and details, from barrows in the Ashton Valley.[751] In both cases they accompanied interments of burnt bones, in one instance placed beneath an inverted urn; in the other there was no urn, but an arrow-head of bone lay with the axe.

An axe (5 1∕4 inches), of nearly the same form, but having a small oval projection on each face opposite the shaft-hole, was found in the bed of the Severn, at Ribbesford, Worcestershire, and is now in the Museum of the Society of Antiquaries. It has been somewhat incorrectly figured by Allies,[752] and rather better by Wright.[753]

An axe-head (5 4∕10 inches), of the same character as Fig. 138, but in outline more nearly resembling Fig. 137, found near Stanwick, Yorkshire, is in the British Museum.[754] The cutting end of such a weapon was dredged with gravel from the Trent, at Beeston, near Nottingham, in 1862. |211|

Another axe-hammer of greenstone, with projections on the faces opposite the centre of the hole, and with a hollow fluting near each margin, that is carried round on the sides below the holes, is shown in Fig. 139. The original was found by the Rev. J. C. Atkinson, who kindly lent it me for engraving. It lay in an urn about 17 inches high, containing burnt bones and some fragments of burnt flint, in a large barrow on the Skelton Moors, Yorkshire. In the same barrow were found eight other urns, all containing secondary interments. In another barrow, on Westerdale Moors, Mr. Atkinson found a second axe-hammer of nearly the same size and form, but more hammer-like at the end. This also has the channels on the faces. It is of fine-grained granite, and lay in an urn with burnt bones, a small “incense-cup,” and a sort of long bone bead, having a spiral pattern upon it and a transverse orifice into the perforation, about the centre. In this case, also, the interment was not that over which the barrow was originally raised. In another barrow, on Danby North Moors, also opened by Mr. Atkinson, a rather larger axe-hammer of much the same outline, lay with the hole in a vertical position, about 15 inches above a deposit of burnt bones. It is of basalt much decayed. An axe-hammer from Inveraray,[755] Argyllshire (5 3∕4 inches), in outline rather like Fig. 143, has small projections on each face opposite to the centre of the shaft-hole.

A longer and more slender form has also occasionally been found in tumuli. Sir R. Colt Hoare has given an engraving of a beautiful specimen from the Selwood Barrow,[756] near Stourton, which is here reproduced as Fig. 140. The axe is of syenite, 5 1∕2 inches long, and lay in a cist, in company with burnt bones and a small bronze dagger, which in the description is erroneously termed a lance-head. Parallel with each side, there appears to be a small groove worked on the face of the weapon. A very pretty example of the same form |212| accompanied an interment in a barrow at Snowshill,[757] Gloucestershire. With it were associated two bronze daggers and a bronze pin.

In the Christy Collection is a similar but larger specimen, 7 inches long, formed of dark greenstone. It also has the grooves along the margin of the faces, and has an oval flat face about 1 inch by 7∕8 inch at the hammer-end. The hole, which is 1 1∕8 inch full in diameter at one side, contracts rather suddenly to 1 inch at the other. This weapon was formerly in the Leverian Museum, and is said to have been found in a barrow near Stonehenge, which, from its similarity to Sir R. C. Hoare’s specimen, there seems no reason to doubt.

An axe-hammer of clay-stone porphyry, 4 3∕4 inches long, and in form the same as those last described—except that there appears to be more of a shoulder at the hammer-end—was found in a barrow at Winwick,[758] near Warrington, Lancashire. It was broken clean across the hole, and had been buried in an urn with burnt bones. With them was also a bronze dagger with a tang, and one rivet hole to secure it in the handle.

An axe-hammer of much the same proportions, but more square at the hammer-end, was discovered in a dolmen near Carnac,[759] in Brittany. A beautiful axe of the same character with ornamental grooves and |213| mouldings is in the Museum at Edinburgh, and is here, by favour of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, shown as Fig. 140A. The original is of diorite, and was dug up in 1800 at Longniddry,[760] East Lothian.

Another variety of form is shown in Fig. 141, reduced from Sir R. Colt Hoare’s great work.[761] In this case the hammer-end would appear to be lozenge-shaped, as there is a central ridge shown on the face. It was found in the Upton Lovel barrow, on the breast of the larger skeleton, near the feet of which the flint celts, polished and unpolished, and various other objects in bone and stone, were found, as previously mentioned.[762] The engraving of this weapon in the Archæologia differs considerably from that given by Sir R. C. Hoare.

In Fig. 142 is shown another form, in which the hammer-end, though flat in one direction, forms a semicircular sweep, answering in form to the cutting edge at the other end. The two faces are ornamented with a slight groove, extending across them parallel to the centre of the shaft-hole. The material of which this axe-hammer is made appears to be serpentine. It was found in the Thames, at London, and is in the British Museum. A “hammer” from a barrow at Wilsford,[763] Wilts, which was associated with a flat bronze celt and other articles of bronze, was of the same type as Fig. 142, but without the grooves.

The very neatly formed instrument represented in Fig. 143, seems to occupy an intermediate place between a battle-axe and a mace or fighting hammer. It is rounded in both directions at the butt-end, but instead of having a sharp edge at the other end it is brought to a somewhat rounded point. The inner side is concave, though hardly to the extent shown by the dotted line in the cut. The shaft-hole is nearly parallel, though somewhat expanding at each end. The |214| material is greenstone. This weapon was found in the middle of a barrow, or rather cairn, formed of stones, in the parish of Pelynt, Cornwall.[764] It lay among a considerable quantity of black ashes, which had evidently been burnt on the natural surface of the ground at the spot. There was no urn, nor any other work of art in company with it. In another barrow, in the same field, was a bronze dagger with two rivets. I have never seen any other stone hammer of this form found in Britain, nor can I call to mind any such in continental museums. The nearest approach to it is to be observed in some of the Scandinavian weapons, in which the outer side is much more rounded than the inner, but in these there is usually an axe-like edge, though very narrow. A shuttle-shaped weapon of porphyritic stone, found in Upper Egypt,[765] is not unlike it, but is equally pointed at both ends. The perforation narrows from 3∕4 inch to 1∕4. The concave side of the Pelynt weapon is so much like that of some of the battle-axes, such as Fig. 137, as to suggest the idea that originally it may have been of this form, but having in some manner been damaged, it has been re-worked into its present exceptional shape.

It will have been observed that instruments, such as most of those engraved, have accompanied interments both by cremation and inhumation, and have, in some cases, been found in association with small daggers, celts, and pins or awls of bronze. Other instances may be adduced from the writings of the late Mr. T. Bateman, though sometimes the exact form of the weapons is not recorded. In the Parcelly Hay Barrow,[766] near Hartington, an axe-head of granite, with a hole for the shaft, and a bronze dagger, with three rivets for fastening the handle, had been buried with a contracted body, above the covering stones of the primary interment.[767] Another, of basalt, apparently like Fig. 126, broken in the middle, is said to have lain between two skeletons at full length, placed side by side in a barrow at Kens Low Farm.[768] On the breast of one lay a circular brooch of copper or bronze. With the axe was a polished porphyry-slate pebble, the ends of which were ground flat. |215|

* * * * *

Looking at the whole series, it seems probable that they were intended to serve more than one purpose, and that while the adze-like instruments may have been tools either for agriculture or for carpentry, and the large heavy axe-hammers also served some analogous purposes, the smaller class of instruments, whether sharpened at both ends or at one only, may with some degree of certainty be regarded as weapons. That the perforated form of axe was of later invention than the solid stone hatchet is almost self-evident; and that many of the battle-axe class belong to a period when bronze was coming into use is well established. That all instruments of this form belong to so late a period there is no evidence to prove; but in other countries where perforated axes are common, as in Scandinavia and Switzerland, those who have most carefully studied the antiquities, find reason for assigning a considerable number to a period when the use of bronze was unknown. On the other hand, it is possible that in some instances the large heavy axe-hammer may have remained in use even in the days when bronze and iron were well known. Sir W. Wilde mentions one in the museum of the Royal Irish Academy, 10 3∕4 inches long, which is said to have been recently in use. Canon Greenwell had another which was used for felling pigs in Yorkshire. Such, however, may be but instances of adapting ancient implements, accidentally met with, to modern uses.

I have already, in the description of the various figures, mentioned when analogous forms were found in other parts of Western Europe, so that it is needless again to cite instances of discoveries on the Continent. I may, however, notice a curious series from Northern Russia and Finland.[769] They are for the most part pointed at one end, the other being sometimes carved to represent the head of an animal. Some are pointed at each end. In several there is a projection on both sides of the shaft-hole, designed to add strength to a weak part, but at the same time made ornamental. The animal’s head occurs also on bronze axes.

Out of Europe this class of perforated instruments is almost unknown.

Turning to modern savages, the comparative absence of perforated axes is striking. In North America, it is true that some specimens occur, but the material is usually too soft for cutting purposes, and the haft-holes are so small that the handles would |216| be liable to break. It has therefore been inferred that they were probably used as weapons of parade. They are, however, occasionally formed of quartz.[770] Schoolcraft,[771] moreover, regards the semilunar perforated maces as actual weapons of war. One of them, pointed at each end, he describes as being 8 inches long, and weighing half a pound. The more hatchet-like forms he considers to be tomahawks. In some instances[772] the hole does not extend through the blade.

In Central America, Southern Africa, and New Zealand, where the art of drilling holes through stone is, or was, well known, perforated axes appear to be absent. I have, however, heard of an instrument of the kind having been discovered in New Zealand, but have not seen either the original or a sketch. Some perforated hoe-like implements have been found in Mexico.

The nearest approach to such instruments is perhaps afforded by the sharp-rimmed perforated discs of stone, mounted on shafts so as to present an edge all round, which are in use, apparently as weapons, in the Southern part of New Guinea, and Torres Straits. Some perforated sharp-rimmed discs of flint and serpentine, have been found in France.[773] They are probably heads of war-maces. In New Caledonia,[774] flat discs of jade, ground to a sharp edge all round, are mounted as axes, being let into a notch at the end of the haft and secured by a lashing that passes through two small holes in the edge of the blade.

The cause of this scarcity of perforated weapons appears to be, that though it might involve rather more trouble and skill to attach a solid hatchet to its shaft, yet this was more than compensated by the smaller amount of labour involved in making that kind of blade, than in fashioning and boring the perforated kind. These latter, moreover, would be more liable to break in use. Looking at our own stone axes from this point of view, it seems that with the very large implements the shaft-hole became almost a necessity; while with those used for warlike purposes, where the contingencies of wear and breakage were but small, it seems probable that the possession of a weapon, on the production of which a more than ordinary amount of labour had been bestowed, was regarded as a mark of distinction, as is the case among some savages of the present day.

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