exception of charcoal, were found in the barrow. Mr. Kirwan suggests that the stone may have been used by placing the thumb and fore-finger in each orifice of the aperture; but not improbably it may have been hafted. In the Museum at Copenhagen are one or two axes of flint, ground at the edge, but with the shaft-holes formed by natural perforations of the stone. And in M. Boucher de Perthes' Collection[1] were two hammer-heads, with central holes of the same character.
The beautiful and elaborately finished hammer-head found at Maesmore, near Corwen, Merionethshire, and now in the National Museum at Edinburgh, is to some extent connected in form with those like Fig. 152. It is shown in Fig. 153, on the scale of 1/2 linear, but a full size representation of it is given elsewhere.[2] It is of dusky white chalcedony, or of very compact quartzite, and weighs 101/2 ounces. "The reticulated ornamentation is worked with great precision, and must have cost great labour. The perforation for the haft is formed with singular symmetry and perfection; the lozengy grooved decoration covering the entire surface is remarkably symmetrical and skilfully finished." The Rev. E. L. Barnwell,[3] who presented
Fig. 153.—Maesmore, Corwen.
it to the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, has observed that "the enormous amount of labour that must have been bestowed on cutting and polishing, would indicate that it was not intended for ordinary use as a common hammer." "Some have considered it as the war implement of a distinguished chief; others, that it was intended for sacrificial or other religious purpose, or as a badge of high office." Other conjectures are mentioned which it is needless to repeat. My own opinion is in favour of regarding it as a weapon of war, such as, like the jade mere of the New Zealander, implied a sort of chieftainship in its possessor. At the time of its discovery it was unique of its kind. But since then a second example has been found, though in an unfinished condition,[4] at Urquhart, near Elgin, and has also been placed in the museum at Edinburgh. It is rather smaller, but of similar type and material to the Welsh specimen. The shaft-hole is finished, but the boring process has not been skilfully carried out, the meeting at the centre of the holes bored from either face not having
↑"Ant. Celt, et Antéd.," vol. i. pl. xiii. 9, p. 327.
↑Arch. Jour., vol. xix. p. 92. Arch. Camb., 3rd S., vol. vi. p. 307.
↑Proc. Soc. Ant. Scot., vol. vi. p. 43. See also Arch. Camb., 4th. S., vol. vii. p. 183.
