parish of Abbot's Langley, Herts. One like Fig. 25, but smaller, found at Bedmond,[1] has been figured. A narrow specimen (6 inches, like Fig. 25) from Aldbourne, Hungerford, is in the collection of Mr. J. W. Brooke, of Marlborough.
Many of the other forms of polished celts occur in the unground condition, of the same shape, for instance, as Fig. 35. It is needless to multiply illustrations, though I must mention a remarkable instrument of this character preserved in the Greenwell collection. It is of flint 614 inches long, and in outline closely resembling Fig. 35. It is, however, much curved longitudinally, the curve being more rapid towards the butt-end, which is also somewhat thickened. The chord of the rather irregular arc thus produced is 12 an inch. Such a tool can only have been mounted as an adze or hoe with the concave face towards the helve. It was found at Kenny Hill, Mildenhall.
A singular instrument chipped out of flint, like three celts conjoined into one, so as to form a sort of tribrach, is said to have been found in the Isle of Wight. It is shown in Fig. 25a, kindly lent by the Society of Antiquaries.[2] In form it is of much the same character as some of the implements from Yucatan,[3] and from Vladimir,[4] Russia. It may be compared with some examples of strange forms from Honduras.[5]
I have already spoken of the method in which these and other allied forms of stone implements were manufactured; but, before quitting the subject of chipped or rough-hewn celts, I must devote a little space to the interesting discovery made by General Pitt Rivers, F.R.S., on the site of an ancient manufactory of flint implements, among which celts predominated, within the entrenchment known as Cissbury, near Worthing, where Colonel Ayre, R.A.,[6] found, some years ago, a very perfect flint celt. The entrenchment has now been proved to be of more recent date than the pits shortly to be mentioned.
Accounts of the investigations of General Pitt Rivers and of some subsequently carried on by Mr. Ernest Willett are given in the Archæologia,[7] from which most of the following particulars are abstracted. Canon Greenwell, F.R.S., also assisted at a part of the exploration, and some of my illustrations are taken from specimens in his collection. The earthwork, of irregularly oval form, surrounds the summit of a chalk hill, near Worthing, in Sussex, on the western slope of which, within the rampart, are some fifty funnel or cup-shaped depressions, some of small size, but others about seventy feet in diameter and twelve feet in depth. At the base of these there seem to have been originally shafts
- ↑ Trans. Herts Nat. Hist. Soc., vol. viii., 1896, pl. xi. 1.
- ↑ See Proc. Soc. Ant., 2nd S., vol. v., p. 113; Arch. Jour., vol. xxx., p. 28.
- ↑ Zeitsch. f. Eth., vol. xii., p. 237.
- ↑ Cong. Preh. Moscou, 1893, p. 249.
- ↑ Proc. Soc. Ant., 2nd S., vol. v., p. 94; Arch. Jour., vol. xxx., p. 35.
- ↑ Suss. Arch. Coll., vol. ii., p. 268.
- ↑ Vol. xlii., p. 53; xlv., p. 337.
