Page:The Ancient Stone Implements (1897).djvu/224

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202
PERFORATED AXES.
[CHAP. VIII.

another from Furness.[1] 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.[2] Two also were found at Scalby,[3] 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,[4] 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, 81/4 inches long, is from the parish of Balmerino, Fife. A fifth, of similar material, 8 inches long, is from Llanbrynmair, Montgomeryshire.[5] 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 101/2 inches long, about 41/4 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, 81/2 lbs.

One (91/2 inches) was found at Grimley,[6] 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 13/4 or 2 inches on each face to about l1/4 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 (71/2 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."[7] It is formed of a very fine-grained, hard, and slightly micaceous grit, and its weight exceeds 73/4 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
  1. Vol. xxxi. p. 452.
  2. Arch., vol. ii. p. 118.
  3. Arch., vol. XXX. p. 459.
  4. P. S. A. S., vol. xiii. p. 334; xxii. p. 384.
  5. "Horæ Ferales," pl. iii. 3.
  6. Allies' "Ants. of Worc.," p. 150, pl. iv. 10.
  7. P. 111.