blade of flint, 838 inches long and 3 inches broad, more curved on one edge than the other, and rounded at one end. The straighter edge is also the sharper. It was found at Cross Bank, near Mildenhall. In general outline it is not unlike some of the Danish lunate implements. It may, however, be only the result of a somewhat unskilful attempt to produce a symmetrical dagger or spear-head, such as Fig. 264. I have several instruments of this kind, found near Icklingham and at other places in Suffolk.
A lance-head of almost the same size and form as Fig. 250, from the neighbourhood of Brescia, has been engraved by Gastaldi.[1] They are also said to be found in Greece.[2]
They sometimes occur among American antiquities. One of them, 11 inches in length, pointed at each end, is engraved by Squier and Davis.[3] I have a beautiful blade of pale buff chalcedony, acutely pointed at one end and rounded at the other, which was found in company with a second of the same size and character, near Comayagua, in Spanish Honduras. It is 638 inches long and 118 inches broad. Other lance-heads from Honduras have been published.[4] A flint sword or spear-head 22 inches long, serrated at the end towards the point, is said to have been found in Tennessee.[5] Lance-heads of flint, not unlike Figs. 249 and 250, are found in South Africa.[6]
Fig. 251.—Fimber 12
Messrs. Mortimer, of Driffield, Yorkshire, have in their collection a remarkable specimen belonging to this class of instrument, which instead of being pointed is almost semicircular at both ends. They have kindly allowed me to engrave it in Fig. 251. It has been neatly chipped from a piece of tabular flint, and not from a flake, and is equally convex on both faces; some of the salient parts along both edges are polished, as if by wear, and on either face are some of the polished "Steenstrup's markings," possibly arising from its having been inserted in a handle. This form is perhaps more closely connected with some of those which will shortly follow than with those which precede it. A somewhat similar oval blade 334 inches long and 234 inches wide, found in the Thames at Long Wittenham, and formerly belonging to the Rev. J. C. Clutterbuck, is ground along both sides, and is now in the Oxford Museum.
A blade of the same form was found in the Grotte des Morts, Durfort (Gard).[7]
In none of the specimens hitherto figured in this chapter, have the edges been sharpened by grinding; in the only instances
- ↑ "Nuovi Cenni, &c.," Torino, 1862, pl. vi. 16.
- ↑ Rev. Arch., vol. xv. p. 17.
- ↑ "Anc. Mon. of Mississ. Vall.," p. 211, fig. 3.
- ↑ Proc. Soc. Ant., 2nd S., vol. vi. p. 34. Arch. Journ., vol. xl. p. 323; xli. p. 50. Journ. Anth. Inst., vol. vi. p. 37.
- ↑ Jones, "Ants. of Tenn." (Smithson. Coll.), p. 58.
- ↑ Journ. Anth. Inst., vol. i. p. xcvi. pl. i.; vol. xiii. p. 162.
- ↑ Matériaux, vol. v. p. 249.
