Page:The Ancient Stone Implements (1897).djvu/111

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POINTED AT THE BUTT-END.
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proportions, found in Bundelcund. It is not of flint. I have smaller specimens from Madras, but more like Fig. 33.


Fig. 33.—Sawdon, North Yorkshire. 1/2

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 61/2 inches long, and was found at Martlesham Hill, Suffolk. A good example found in 1880 at Hinchcombe,[1] 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, 41/8 inches long, was found at Pen-y-bonc,[2] 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, 21/8 inches long. One from Ganton Wold, 23/4 inches long, has a straight edge. I have a very rude specimen from the Yorkshire Wolds about 13/4 inches long, 13/4 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, 43/4 inches long, from Bogingarry, Old Deer, Aberdeenshire. Another, 15/8 inches by 1 inch, was found near Dundee.[3] One very like
  1. Arch. Assoc. Jour., vol. xxxvii., 1881, p. 214.
  2. Arch. Jour., vol. xxxi., pp. 296, 301.
  3. Proc. Soc. Ant. Scot., vol. xiv., p. 265 ; xxiv., p. 6.