a fresh purpose. In this case the sharper end of a large axe-head of stone, probably much like Fig. 131, having been broken off, the wedge-shaped fragment, which is about 3 inches long and 2 inches broad, has been bored through in a direction at right angles to the edge, and probably to the original shaft-hole, and a somewhat adze-like hammer-head has been the result, what was formerly the edge of the axe being rounded and battered.
Fragments of celts which, when the edge was lost, subsequently served as hammers, but without any perforation, have not unfrequently been found, both here and on the Continent. The Eskimo hammer, already mentioned, has much the same appearance and character as if it had been made from a portion of a jade celt.
Fig. 150.—Rockland. 12
The form of hammer shown in Fig. 150, may be described as a frustum of a cone with convex ends. The specimen here figured is of quartzite, and was found near Rockland, Norfolk. It is preserved in the Norwich Museum. The hole, as usual with this type, is nearly parallel. The lower half of a similar hammer, but of flint, 2 inches in diameter, and showing one-half of the shaft-hole, which is 58 inch in diameter, is in the British Museum. It came from Grundisburgh, Suffolk.
A more conical specimen, tapering from 238 inches to 178 inches in diameter, and 3 inches long, with a shaft-hole 78 inch in diameter within 34 inch of the top, is in the Greenwell Collection. It is of basalt, and was found at Twisel, in the parish of Norham, Northumberland.
Some rather larger and more cylindrical instruments of analogous form have been obtained in Yorkshire. One such, about 4 inches long, and with a small parallel shaft-hole about 34 inch in diameter, was found with an urn in a barrow at Weapon Ness, and is in the museum at Scarborough. With it was a flint spear-head or javelin-head. It is described as rather kidney-shaped in the Archæologia.[1] I have the half of another, made of compact sandstone, and found on the Yorkshire Wolds.
The same form occurs in Ireland, but the sides curve inwards and the section is somewhat oval. Sir W. Wilde[2] describes two such of polished gneiss, and a third is engraved in Shirley's "Account of Farney."[3] Sir William suggests that such implements were, in all probability, used in metal working, especially in the manufacture of gold and silver. Certainly, in most cases, they can hardly have been destined for any ordinary purposes of savage life, as the labour involved in boring such shaft-holes in quartzite, and especially in- ↑ Vol. xxx. p. 461.
- ↑ "Cat. Mus. R. I. A.," p. 80.
- ↑ P. 94. See also Arch. Journ., vol. iii. p. 94; and Worsaae's "Prim. Ants. of Den.," p. 15.
