Page:Cornwall (Salmon).djvu/51

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

ANTIQUITIES implements or weapons of bronze, such as celts, palstaves and swords, occurring separately in places widely removed from each other. These are evidently objects which have been lost. At four or five places in Cornwall, however, groups or collections of implements, together with rough pieces of metal, have been recorded. Camden, the antiquary, mentions such a deposit containing many bronze implements, swords, celts, etc., at St. Michael's Mount. Other hoards of bronze have been found at Kenidjack Cliff, at Lelant, at Mawgan, and at St. Hilary. Hoards of bronze are always of great archaeo- logical interest, not only from the light they throw upon Bronze Age methods of casting metal, and the high valuation then put upon it, but also because many of the bronze tools are worn out, and in the methods and features of wear we are able to detect indications of the purposes to which they were applied. Spear- heads were found in the St. Hilary hoard, and heavy lumps of copper in that at Lelant. Socketed celts have been found at Carn Brae and at Launceston ; palstaves, at Penvores, Penzance, St. Austell, and other parts of Corn- wall; a bronze dagger at Angrowse, Mullion; a bronze pin in the River Fowey; a mould for casting buckles at Camelford, and a bronze brooch at Redmore. Perhaps the most remarkable Bronze Age objects found in Cornwall were the two lunettes or diadems found at Harlyn, the beautiful cup ■^^ inches high procured from c 33