Page:The Ancient Stone Implements (1897).djvu/220

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198
PERFORATED AXES.
[CHAP. VIII.

specimen. The battle-axe from the barrow at Selwood, Fig. 140, is also slightly ornamented by lines on the sides, and that from Skelton Moors, Fig. 139, is fluted.

Two axe-hammers of granite and greenstone (41/2 and 5 inches) of much the same type as Fig. 129, but more elongated, so as in form to resemble Fig. 136, were found near Ardrossan,[1] Ayrshire.

An unfinished axe-head of the same kind was found at Middleton,[2] Stevenston, Ayrshire.

An axe-head of porphyritic greenstone (73/4 inches long), from Stainton Dale, near Scarborough,[3] is said to resemble in form an Irish axe-head engraved in the Ulster Journal of Archæology[4]. If so, the sides through which the hole is bored were hollow, as in Fig. 129, and there was also a moulding round them. This Irish axe-head is formed of a kind of pale green hone-stone, and is now in the British Museum. Instead of incised lines there are raised flanges on each face, bordering the concave side in which is the shaft-hole. The length is 51/4 inches, and the butt-end is half an oval, just flattened at the end. It was found in the river Bann.

Axe-heads of a much more clumsy character than any of those last described are of more frequent occurrence in this country. The one I have selected for illustration as Fig. 130, is rather small of its kind. It is made of greenstone, the surface of which has considerably suffered from weathering, and was found in draining at Walsgrave-upon-Sowe, near Coventry. It was presented to my collection by the late Mr. J. S. Whittem, F.G.S. The shaft-hole, as usual, tapers inwards from both sides; its surface is more polished than that of the exterior of the implement. A small portion of the end of the butt is flat, but this appears due to accident rather than design. I have a rather longer axe-head, of porphyritic greenstone, which was washed out of the ground by a brook at Ayside, near Newby Bridge, Windermere, and was given to me by Mr. Harrison, of Manchester. It is considerably rounded in both directions at the butt, the edge is narrow, and one side, probably the outer, much more rounded than the other. The edge is carefully ground, but farther up the face, the surface shows that it has been picked into form. The shaft-hole is much like that of Fig. 130.

I have another specimen from Plumpton, near Penrith (91/2 inches), rounded at the butt, but unsymmetrical, owing to a natural plane of cleavage interfering with the shape, and, as it were, taking off a slice of the stone. The shaft-hole is oval, the longer diameter being lengthwise of the blade, and the edge is oblique. The sides are flatter than those of Fig. 130. In my collection are others from Mawbray and Inglewood Forest, Cumberland (71/2 and 8 inches), and one (7 inches) from Cader Idris, Merionethshire. Another (10 inches) was found at Llanfairfechan,[5] Carnarvonshire, another at Llanidloes,[6] Montgomeryshire, and a third in Anglesey.[7] The late Mr. Llewellynn Jewitt, F.S.A., had a flatter and longer specimen of this form (10 inches), found at Winster, Derbyshire. Implements of this character, but often approxi-
  1. P. S. A. S., vol. ix. p. 383, pl. xxii.
  2. P. S. A. S., vol. xxi. p. 264.
  3. Arch. Journ., vol, xii. p. 277.
  4. Vol. iii. p. 234.
  5. Arch. Camb., 5th S., vol. v. p. 170.
  6. Montg. Coll., vol. xiv. p. 271.
  7. Arch. Journ., vol. xxxi. p. 302.