axe-head is said to be formed of some kind of ironstone, and is 5 inches long. The hole is described as neatly drilled. A weapon of the same kind (312 inches) blunter at the ends and described as a hammer, was found with a deer's-horn hammer, and a bronze knife in a barrow at Lambourn, Berks.[1] A small black stone axe-head of nearly similar form was found near the head of a contracted skeleton at a depth of 12 feet in a barrow in Rolston Field, Wilts.[2] A somewhat similar specimen, with the sides faceted and blunt at one end, has been engraved as having been found in Yorkshire.[3] It is, however, doubtful whether, like many other objects in the same plate, it is not foreign. The original is now in the Christy Collection.
A double-edged axe-head of basalt, injured by fire, and 412 inches long, was found by the late Mr. Bateman, in a large urn with calcined bones, bone pins, a tubular bone laterally perforated, a flint "spear-head," and a bronze awl, in a barrow near Throwley, Derbyshire.[4] This was the only instance in which he found a perforated stone axe accompanying an interment by cremation.
An axe-head of basalt, with a double edge to cut either way, was also dug up in the neighbourhood of Tideswell, Derbyshire.[5]
Fig. 119.—Hove. 12
A specimen of this kind (5 inches), edged at both ends, but "the one end rather blunted and lessened a little by use," was found near Grimley, Worcestershire, and is figured by Allies.[6]
I have a specimen (518 inches), much weathered, which is said to have come from Bewdley in that county, but which maybe that from Grimley.
An example, 5 inches long, engraved in the Salisbury volume[7] of the Archæological Institute, from a barrow on Windmill Hill, Abury, Wilts, is described as double-edged.[8]
The Danish and German axe-heads of this form have usually, but not always, one edge much more blunted than the other. Occasionally there is a ridge on each side at the blunt end, which shows that this thickening was intentional. A fine double-edged axe-head of this form from Brandenburg is engraved in the "Horæ Ferales."[9] The double-edged form is found also in Finland.[10]
The form likewise occurs in France, but the faces are usually flatter. I have one from the Seine at Paris (512 inches). Another from the- ↑ Greenwell, in Arch., vol. lii. p. 60.
- ↑ Hoare's "South Wilts," p. 174.
- ↑ Arch. Assoc. Journ., vol. xx. pl. vii. 1.
- ↑ "Ten Years' Diggings," p. 155.
- ↑ "Vest. of Ants. of Derbyshire," p. 7.
- ↑ "Ants. of Worcestershire," pl. iv. 8 and 9.
- ↑ P. 108, No. 4.
- ↑ Arch. Journ., vol. vii. p. 399.
- ↑ Pl. iii. 9.
- ↑ Aspelin, "Ant. du Nord Finno-Ougrien," No. 78.
