Page:The Ancient Stone Implements (1897).djvu/376

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TRIMMED FLAKES, KNIVES, ETC.
[CHAP. XV.

butt, so as to facilitate insertion in a handle, were found in the sepulchral cave of St. Jean d'Alcas,[1] in the Aveyron. Another, worked on both faces, about 7 inches long and 11/4 inches broad, notched in two or three places on each side at the base, was found in one of the dolmens of the Lozère.[2] A third, shorter and broader, but also notched at the base, was in the dolmen[3] of Grailhe (Gard).

A finely-worked, somewhat lozenge-shaped, blade of flint, 10 inches in length, was found at Spiennes,[4] near Mons, in Belgium.

A lance-head (63/4 inches) from the Government of Vladimir,[5] Russia, has been figured.

A lance-head of flint, 9 inches long and 21/8 broad, tanged at the butt, and with a notch on each side of the tang, has been figured by Gastaldi[6] from a specimen in the Museum at Naples, found at Telese.

In Egypt, associated with other objects betokening a considerable civilization, have been found several thin blades of flint, of much the same character as the highly-finished European specimens. A magnificent lance-head (141/2 inches) has been presented to the Ashmolean Museum by Prof. Flinders Petrie[7]. It is delicately serrated along the edges for most of its length. A smaller blade is more leaf-shaped and minutely serrated all round. Another appears to have been hafted as a dagger. In my own collection is a leaf-shaped blade 7 inches long, most delicately made and serrated. Others are, however, thick at the back, and provided with a tang like a metallic knife. Two of these in the Berlin Museum,[8] are 71/4 inches and 63/4 inches long respectively, and 21/4 inches and 2 inches wide; I have one 51/8 inches in length. There are other specimens in the Egyptian Museums at Leyden and Turin, and in the National Museum[9] at Edinburgh. A larger blade, and even more closely resembling some of the Scandinavian lunate instruments in form, being leaf-shaped, but more curved on one edge than the other, is also in the Berlin Museum.[10] It is 9 inches long and 21/2 inches wide. A curved scimitar-like knife from Egypt[11] is figured, as is one with a notch on each side of the butt.[12] Another blade, of ovate form, and without tang, 23/4 inches long and 1 inch wide, is preserved in the Mayer Collection in the Museum[13] at Liverpool.

Some other Egyptian blades will be subsequently mentioned.

A dagger-blade of flint, still mounted in its original handle, is in the British Museum,[14] and has already been described.

Some of the dagger-blades in use in Mexico in ancient times were of
  1. Cazalis de Fondouce, "La Gr. sép. de St. J. d'Alcas," 1867, pl. i.
  2. Matériaux, vol. v. p. 321; viii. p. 39.
  3. Matériaux, vol. v. p. 538.
  4. Cong. Préh. Bruxelles, 1872, pl. 67, 3. Van Overloop, "Les Ages de la Pierre," pl. viii.
  5. Cong. Préh. Moscou, 1892, ii. p. 241.
  6. Mem. R. Acc. delle Sc. di Torino, xxvi. Tav. viii. 24. See also Bull. di Pal. Ital., 1881, pl. vii.
  7. Arch. Journ. vol, liii. p. 46, See also Mat., vol. ix. p. 24, and De Morgan, "Rech. sur les Or. de l'Égypte," 1896, p. 121.
  8. Zeitschr. für Ægypt. Sprache, &c., July, 1870. Wilkinson, "Anc. Egyptians," vol. iii. p. 262.
  9. P. S. A. S., vol. xxvi. p. 399.
  10. Zeitschr. für Æg. Sp., ibid.
  11. Journ. Anth. Inst., vol. xi, pl. xxxiii. See also vol. xiv. p. 56; Proc. Soc. Ant., 2nd S., vol. vi., p. 21; and Petrie's "Hawara," 1889, pl. xxviii.
  12. Zeitsch. f. Ethn., vol. xxii., 1890, p. (516).
  13. Journ. Anth. Inst., vol. i. p. xcvi. pl. i. 3.
  14. See Fig. 1 p. 8.