GRINDING-STONES AND WHETSTONES.
Before proceeding to the consideration of other forms of implements,
it will be well to say a few words with regard to those which have
served for grinding, polishing, or sharpening tools and weapons, and
more especially such as there is every reason to suppose, were employed
to give an edge or finish to other materials than metal, though the
whetstones of the Bronze Period must not be passed by unnoticed.
I have already mentioned the fact that the grindstones on which stone
celts and axes were polished and sharpened, were not like those of the
present day, revolving discs against the periphery of which the object
to be ground was held; but stationary slabs on which the implements
to be polished or sharpened were rubbed. Considering the numbers of
polished implements that have been discovered in this country, it
appears not a little remarkable that such slabs have not been more
frequently noticed, though not improbably they have, from their
simple character, for the most part escaped observation; and even
if found, there is usually little, unless the circumstances of the
discovery are peculiar, to connect them with any particular stage of
civilization or period of antiquity. In Denmark and Sweden, however,
these grinding-stones, both of the flat and polygonal forms already
described, are of comparatively frequent occurrence. Specimens are
figured by Worsaae,[1070] Sophus Müller, and others, and were also
given by Thomsen,[1071] so long ago as 1832. He states that they have
been found in Scandinavia, in barrows and elsewhere in the ground,
with half-finished stone celts lying with them, so that there can be
no doubt as to the purpose for which they were intended. They are
also described by Nilsson[1072] and Montelius.[1073] |262| Both
slabs and prismatic pieces of sandstone have been found in the Swiss
Lake-dwellings,[1074] several of the former with concavities on one
or both faces, resulting from stone hatchets having been ground upon
them.[1075]
* * * * *
In France the discovery of numerous ‘_polissoirs_’ has been noticed,
some of them of very large dimensions. They are abundant in the
Departments of la Charente[1076] and la Dordogne,[1077] and some fine
examples are in the Museum of Troyes (Aube). One, nearly 3 feet long,
with hollows of different characters, apparently for grinding different
parts of tools and weapons, is figured by M. Peigné Delacourt;[1078]
an oval concavity upon it is 2 feet 3 inches long by 1 foot wide, and
seems well adapted for grinding the faces of large celts. Another
fine example was in the possession of Dr. Léveillé,[1079] at Grand
Pressigny, and a large specimen, also from Poitou, is in the Musée de
St. Germain. Several have been found in Luxembourg[1080] and Belgium.
Flat grinding-stones of smaller dimensions have been found in the
turbaries of the Somme and in the Camp de Catenoy.[1081] A narrow
sharpening stone 5 inches long is recorded to have been found with
stone hatchets and other implements in the Cueva de los Murciélagos, in
Spain.[1082] _Polissoirs_ have also been observed in India.[1083]
The Carreg y Saelhau,[1084] or Stone of the Arrows, near Aber,
Carnarvonshire, has numerous scorings upon it, a quarter or half an
inch in depth; and, though doubtless used for sharpening tools and
weapons of some kind, it seems to belong to the metallic age. Canon
Greenwell informs me that he observed a rock close to a camp on Lazenby
Fell, Cumberland, with about seventy grooves upon it from 4 to 7
inches long and about 1 inch wide and deep, pointed at either end, as
if from sharp-ended tools or weapons having been ground in them. The
grooves are in various directions, though sometimes in groups of four
or five together, which are parallel with each other. In the course
of his investigations in the barrows on the Yorkshire Wolds[1085] he
has found a few of the flat slabs for grinding or polishing, though
of small size. One of them, formed of a flat piece of red sandstone
about 4 1∕2 inches by 3 1∕2 inches, with both faces bearing marks of
having been in use for grinding, lay close to a deposit of burnt bones.
Another somewhat similar fragment of sandstone (2 3∕4 inches by 2 1∕2
inches), which also bore traces of attrition, was found in a barrow at
Helperthorpe.
In another barrow at Cowlam,[1086] Yorkshire, E. R., was a rough piece
|263| of grit, 2 1∕4 inches long, with one end slightly hollowed,
apparently by grinding celts, and a large flat compact laminated red
sandstone pebble about 8 3∕4 inches by 3 inches, with both faces ground
away, the one being evenly flat and the other uneven. In the same
barrow occurred one of the flint rubbers to be subsequently described,
and also a quartzite pebble (2 1∕2 inches long) that had been used as
a hammer-stone. A portion of a whetstone of Pennant or Coal-measure
sandstone was found in the long barrow at West Kennet, Wiltshire,[1087]
in which also occurred a thin ovoidal knife of flint, ground at the
edges.
I have in my own collection a very interesting specimen of this kind
from Burwell Fen, near Cambridge. It is a thin slab of close-grained
micaceous sandstone, about 5 1∕2 by 4 inches, slightly hollowed and
polished on both faces by grinding. With it were found two celts
of flint, 4 1∕2 and 5 inches long, of pointed oval section, one of
them polished all over, and the other at the edge only, which in all
probability had been sharpened on this very stone. In the same place
were two long subangular fragments of greenstone of the right form,
size, and character to be manufactured into celts, and which had no
doubt been selected for that purpose.
A grinding-stone with a celt lying in it, found at Glenluce,[1088]
Wigtownshire, has been figured.
On the Sussex Downs I have found flat pebbles 3 or 4 inches long, which
have evidently been used as hones, but whether for stone or metallic
tools it is impossible to say. Fragments of polished celts and numerous
flakes and “scrapers” of flint were, however, in their immediate
neighbourhood. Among the modern savages of Tahiti[1089] who used
hatchets of basalt, a whetstone and water appear to have been always at
hand, as constant sharpening was necessary. It seems probable therefore
that there must have been a constant demand for such sharpening-stones
in this country, and that many of them ought still to exist. With flint
hatchets, the constant whetting was, however, no doubt less necessary
than with those of the different kinds of basalt. Their edges, if
carefully chipped, will indeed cut wood without being ground at all.
* * * * *
Mr. Bateman mentions “a flat piece of sandstone rubbed hollow at one
side” as having been found in a barrow at Castern, Staffordshire,[1090]
but it is uncertain whether this was a grindstone. It may have been
used only as a mortar, for with it was a round piece of ruddle or
red ochre, “which from its abraded appearance must have been in much
request for colouring the skin of its owner.”[1091] In a barrow on the
West Coast of Kintyre, there also occurred a piece of red Lancashire
or Westmoreland iron-ore or hæmatite worn flat on the side, apparently
by having been rubbed upon some other substance. Nodules of ruddle are
also said to |264| have occurred, interspersed with the charcoal in a
barrow at Broad Down, near Honiton.[1092]
In one of the ancient habitations in Holyhead,[1093] was a large stone
11 inches long, probably used for grinding hæmatite, with which it was
deeply tinged; and a small stone box found with celts and other relics
at Skara, Skaill, Orkney,[1094] contained a red pigment.
[Illustration: Fig. 180A.—Lamberton Moor.]
There can be little doubt of this red pigment having been in use for
what was considered a personal decoration by the early occupants of
Britain. But this use of red paint dates back to a far earlier period,
for pieces of hæmatite with the surface scraped, apparently by means of
flint-flakes, have been found in the French and Belgian caves of the
Reindeer Period, so that this red pigment appears to have been in all
ages a favourite with savage man. The practice of interring war-paint
with the dead is still observed among the North American Indians.[1095]
“The paints that warriors love to use
Place here within his hand,
That he may shine with ruddy hues
Amidst the spirit land.”
* * * * *
Some few of the grinding-stones found in this country resemble those
of polygonal form found in Denmark,[1096] in so far as they are
symmetrically shaped and have been used on all their faces. One 13 1∕2
inches long, found on Lamberton Moor,[1097] Berwickshire, is shown in
Fig. 180A., kindly lent by the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland.
In the Christy Collection is such a sharpening-stone, nearly square in
section, about 9 1∕4 inches long, and of the form shown in Fig. 181.
Both the faces and sides are worn slightly concave, as if from grinding
convex surfaces such as the edges of celts, though it is impossible to
say with any degree of certainty that this was really the purpose to
which it was applied. It is said to have been found near Barcoot, in
the parish of Dorchester, Oxon, in 1835, not far from a spot where a
|265| stone celt had been found a few years previously. In the same
collection is a Danish whetstone of precisely the same character, but
rather broader at one end than at the other.
[Illustration: Fig. 181.—Dorchester. 1∕2]
A grinding-stone, 26 inches long, was found at Ehenside Tarn,[1098]
Cumberland.
[Illustration: Fig. 182.—Rudstone. 1∕1]
In Fig. 182 is shown, full size, a very curious object formed of
compact mica-schist, which has the appearance of having served as a
whetstone or hone. It has been ground over its whole surface. The
flatter face is towards the middle somewhat hollowed—rather more so
than is shown in the section—and shows some oblique scratches upon it
as if from rubbing a rather rough object upon it. It was found in 1870
by Canon Greenwell, with other relics accompanying an unburnt body in
a barrow at Rudstone, near Bridlington.[1099] About midway between the
head and the knees was a series of articles in this descending order.
On the top was this whetstone—if such it be—resting on a carved jet
ring, like Fig. 372, which lay on the boss of a large jet button. Below
this was another jet button, like Fig. 371, face downwards. Close by
lay a half-nodule of pyrites and a round-ended flint flake, which will
be subsequently noticed. Nearer the face was a dagger-knife of bronze,
with three rivets through it, and two more for fastening together
the two plates of ox-horn of which the hilt had been composed. The
whetstone may have been that used for sharpening this instrument.
An instrument of slate of nearly the same |266| form was found in a
cairn at Penbeacon,[1100] Dartmoor, and was regarded by Mr. Spence
Bate as a tool used in fashioning clay vessels. Dr. Thurnam[1101] has
suggested that if covered with leather these stones may have served as
bracers or arm-guards for archers.
Two pieces of a dark-coloured slaty kind of stone, of nearly the same
form and size as the Yorkshire specimen, and lying parallel with each
other, were found by Sir R. Colt Hoare[1102] at the feet of a skeleton,
together with a little rude drinking-cup, in a barrow near Winterbourn
Stoke. A stud and ring of jet, probably of the same character as those
from Rudstone, and a piece of flint rudely chipped, as if intended for
a dagger or spear, were also found. No bronze objects were discovered,
but the cist appears to have been imperfectly examined.
[Illustration: Fig. 183.—Fimber. 1∕2]
* * * * *
I have already mentioned[1103] that in grinding and polishing the
concave faces of different forms of perforated stone axes, it is
probable that stone rubbers were used in conjunction with sand. Even
the smaller flat and rounded faces may have been wrought by similar
means. That rubbers of some kind must have been used, is, I think,
evident from the character of the surfaces, especially of those which
are hollowed; and the most readily available material for the formation
of such rubbers, was doubtless stone. There is therefore an _à priori_
probability of such stone grinding-tools having been in use; and if
we find specimens which present the conditions which such tools would
exhibit, we are almost justified in assuming them to have served such
purposes. Now in the collection of Messrs. Mortimer, of Driffield,
Yorkshire, are several pieces of flint and portions of pebbles of
schist, flint, and quartz found in that neighbourhood, which are ground
at one end into a more or less rounded form, and exhibit striæ running
along, and not across, the rounded surface. They have, in fact, all
the appearance of having been used with coarse sand for grinding a
concavity in another stone, such, for instance, as the concave face
of the stone axe shown in Fig. 125. I am indebted to their kindness
for the specimen shown in Fig. 183, which consists of a short piece of
a conical nodule of flint, the large end of which has been used for
grinding in ancient times, the striated face being now considerably
weathered. In the Greenwell Collection is a rubber of the same kind
from Weaverthorpe on the Yorkshire Wolds. Mr. H. S. Harland[1104] has
found other specimens in Yorkshire, of which he has kindly given me
several. Polishers[1105] are also found in Scotland. A polisher of
somewhat similar character, but made of serpentine, was found in the
|267| Lago di Varese, near Como, where a number of stone implements
were also discovered.
At a later period larger rubbers of the same kind were used to smooth
the flutings of Doric columns. I have seen some among the ruins of the
temples at Selinunto, in Sicily.
Some long narrow rubbers, apparently intended for grinding out
the shaft-holes of perforated axes, have been found in the Swiss
Lake-dwellings; and I have a slightly conical stone, about an inch in
diameter, from Mainz, which may have been used for the same purpose.
* * * * *
In the barrow at Cowlam, already mentioned, besides the grinding-stones
of grit, there was a piece of flint roughly chipped into a cubical
form, and having one face partly ground smooth. It may have been used
for polishing the surfaces of other stone implements, or possibly
merely as a muller. It is shown in Fig. 184. The striæ run diagonally
of the square face.
In the collection formed by Canon Greenwell, is also a sandstone
pebble, 2 1∕2 inches in diameter, which has been “picked” into shape,
and has one face smooth as if used for grinding. It was found in a
barrow on Ganton Wold, East Riding. A roughly conical piece of oolitic
sandstone, 2 1∕2 inches high, in places “picked” on the surface, and
with the base apparently used for grinding, was found with a contracted
body and some flint flakes, in another barrow on Ganton Wold.[1106]
[Illustration: Fig. 184.—Cowlam. 1∕2]
[Illustration: Fig. 185.—Amesbury. 1∕2]
In the Wiltshire barrows several rubbing-stones (or what appear to be
such) of a peculiar form have been found, of which one is shown in Fig.
185. It is of close-grained grit, possibly from the Lower Greensand,
and was discovered with two others in a harrow on Normanton Down, near
Amesbury. Two more were in the collection of the late Rev. Edward
Duke, of Lake, near Salisbury, to whose kindness I am indebted for
the loan of the specimen. Both are now in the British Museum. These
instruments vary but little in shape, size, or character, being usually
of a truncated half-ovoid form, with a rounded groove along the flat
surface, and are formed of sandstone.
One was found in a barrow at Upton Lovel,[1107] with flint celts, a
perforated stone axe-head, various implements of bone, a bronze pin
or |268| awl, and other objects. Another occurred in a barrow at
Everley,[1108] with a bronze chisel, an unused whetstone of freestone,
and a hone of bluish colour; and another with a skeleton, a stone
hammer, a bronze celt, a bone tube, and various other articles in a
barrow at Wilsford.[1109] Two or three of these sharpening stones,
found in a barrow at Roundway, near Devizes, are in the Museum of the
Wilts Archæological Society. One of these has been figured.[1110]
A pebble with shallow grooves on each face found at Mount Caburn,
Lewes,[1111] may possibly belong to this class of implements, though
it may have been a hammer. A rubbing-stone of this kind was found at
Topcliffe,[1112] Yorkshire, but not in a barrow.
Sir R. C. Hoare considered whetstones of this kind to have been used
for sharpening and bringing to a point, pins and other implements of
bone, and they seem well adapted for such a purpose, and are still
so used by the Eskimos. They may also have served for smoothing the
shafts of arrows. Serpentine pebbles with a groove in them are used
for straightening arrow-shafts by the Indians of California,[1113] and
shaft rubbers of sandstone have been found in Pennsylvania.[1114]
The Rev. W. C. Lukis found a similar stone (4 1∕4 inches) in a barrow
in Brittany. It is now in the British Museum. Another from a dolmen
in Lozère[1115] has been thought to be for sharpening the points of
bone instruments. Stones of the same form have been found in Germany;
two from the cemetery near Monsheim[1116] are preserved in the Museum
at Mainz. They are rather more elongated than the English examples.
A specimen very like Fig. 185 has been found in Denmark.[1117] They
seem also to occur in Hungary.[1118] I have a grooved stone of this
kind from the Lago di Varese, Como, where the manufacture of flint
arrow-heads was carried on extensively. An object found with polished
stone instruments in the cave Casa da Moura, Portugal,[1119] not
improbably belongs to this class of grooved sharpening stones.
[Illustration: Fig. 186.—Hove. 1∕2]
From their association with bronze objects, they appear to belong to
the Bronze rather than to the Stone Period; and the same holds good
with the more ordinary form of whetstone, of which an example is given
in Fig. 186. The original was found in the tumulus at Hove,[1120]
near Brighton, which contained the stone axe-head already mentioned,
a beautiful amber cup, and a bronze dagger. Another, of compact
red sandstone, 3 3∕8 inches long, with the perforated end rounded,
was found in a barrow on Bow Hill,[1121] Sussex, and is now in the
British Museum. Another, 3 inches long, bluish grey in |269| colour,
was found with a bronze dagger and a stone axe-hammer in an urn at
Broughton[1122] in Craven, in 1675.
Two perforated whetstones were found with a bronze dagger and pin
in the Silk Hill Barrow,[1123] Wilts. Another, with the perforation
in a sort of loop at the end, was found with two daggers and a
crutched pin of bronze, associated with burnt bones in a barrow at
Normanton.[1124] Whetstones, in some cases not perforated, have
occurred in other Wiltshire barrows, associated with bronze daggers at
Wilsford[1125] and Lake,[1126] and with flint daggers or spear-heads
at Durrington.[1127] The smooth stone found with a flint dagger in a
barrow near Stonehenge,[1128] may also possibly have been a whetstone.
Two from barrows at Knowle,[1129] Dorset, and Camerton, Somerset, have
been figured by Dr. Thurnam. Another of the same kind was found in a
barrow at Tregaseal,[1130] St. Just, Cornwall, and two others with urns
at Brane Common,[1131] in the same neighbourhood. Others not perforated
are recorded from Cottenham,[1132] Cambs. One from Anglesea[1133] has
been figured.
Two of greenish stone (chlorite?) one 2 5∕8 inches long, perforated
at the end, were found at Drewton,[1134] near North Cave, Yorkshire;
and another of similar material, 2 inches long, was found near some
“Picts’ houses,”[1135] Shapinsay, Orkney. Half of a whetstone was
found with a bronze dagger and numerous flint flakes by Mr. Morgan in
a barrow at Penhow,[1136] Monmouthshire; and a much-used whetstone
was found in a barrow near Scarborough,[1137] but the form of neither
is specified. Several, both pierced and otherwise, have been recorded
from Scotland.[1138] One with the boring incomplete was found with a
flint knife in a cist at Stenton,[1139] East Lothian, and another,
perforated, with a thin bronze blade and an urn at Glenluce,[1140]
Wigtownshire. It appears possible that some of the stones found in
Scotland and perforated at one end, described by Wilson[1141] as
flail-stones, may after all be merely whetstones. The perforated
form is common in Ireland, and is usually found in connection with
metal objects.[1142] I have a narrow hone of rag-stone, perforated at
one end, which was found with a remarkable hoard of bronze objects,
including moulds for socketed celts and for a gouge, in the Isle of
Harty, Sheppey. An almost identical whetstone is in the Zurich Museum.
Whetstones, perforated at one end, have occurred in the Swiss
Lake-dwellings.[1143] Most of those found in the ancient cemetery
of Hallstatt,[1144] in the Salzkammergut, were perforated in the
same manner, and in |270| some cases provided with an iron loop for
suspension. They are usually of sandstone, and not formed from slaty
rocks.
A whetstone, 5 1∕4 inches long, the two flat faces of which had
evidently been used for sharpening flat blades, while in the centre of
each is a deep groove, probably caused by sharpening pointed tools,
such as awls or needles of bronze, was found at Ty Mawr, Anglesea, near
a spot where a number of bronze celts, spear-heads, &c., had previously
been dug up. It has been figured by the late Hon. W. O. Stanley,[1145]
whose cut is here reproduced as Fig. 187. The ends of the stone are
somewhat battered from its having been also used as a hammer.
[Illustration: Fig. 187.—Ty Mawr.]
The same explorer discovered in hut-circles in Holyhead Island[1146]
other whetstones of the same character, in one instance with two
principal grooves and minor scorings crossing each other at an acute
angle, and in another with three parallel grooves in the face of the
stone. There can be little doubt that these sharpening stones belong to
a period when the use of metal for cutting and piercing instruments was
fully established.
* * * * *
There are frequently found in Ireland and Scotland flat pebbles of
quartz and quartzite, sometimes ground on the edges or faces, or on
both, and having on each face an indentation running in a somewhat
oblique direction to the longer axis of the pebble. Specimens[1147]
have been figured by Sir William Wilde, who describes them as
sling-stones. The flat faces of some have all the appearance of
having been abraded by a pointed instrument. I have never met with
this form in England, but in the National Museum at Edinburgh is a
grooved pebble exactly like those found in Ireland, from the broch,
at Kintradwell,[1148] Sutherlandshire, and another from that at
Lingrow, Orkney. One from Borness,[1149] |271| Kirkcudbrightshire,
has been figured. Others have been found at Dunino,[1150] Fife, and
Dunnichen,[1151] Forfarshire. This latter has an oval hollow on one
face and a groove on the other.
This pebble variety is rarely found in Scandinavia, but another and
probably rather later form, in which the pebbles have been wrought
into a long shuttle-like shape, is abundant. Some of these are
provided with a groove along the sides, which would admit of a cord
being fastened round them, by which to suspend them from the girdle.
On one or both faces there is often a similar indentation to those
on the Irish specimens, on which, however, it is, as a rule, deeper
than on the Scandinavian. On the latter, the grooves have sometimes
more the appearance of having been produced by repeated slight
blows than by friction. Specimens are engraved by Worsaae[1152] and
Nilsson.[1153] The latter regards them as belonging to the Stone Age.
They occurred, however, with numerous objects of the early Iron Age at
Thorsbjerg,[1154] and have even been found with remains of both bronze
and iron bands around them, instead of any more perishable cord.
These grooved stones are not to be confounded with the ordinary form of
hammer-stone,[1155] but belong to a distinct category. They were, in
all probability, used as a means for obtaining fire, by striking them
with a pointed piece of iron. They constitute, in fact, the “flint”
part of a modification of the ordinary “flint and steel.”
Whetstones are, of course, commonly found with Roman domestic
antiquities; with Saxon, which are usually of a more purely sepulchral
character, they are rarely discovered. Canon Greenwell found, however,
two whetstones, one as much as 24 inches long, in graves of this
period, at Uncleby, Yorkshire.
In one of the German cemeteries on the Rhine, corresponding to ours of
Anglo-Saxon date, a small rubbing or sharpening stone, almost celt-like
in form, was found.[1156]
In Dutch Guiana[1157] a small form of grinding-stone of quartz,
apparently of the same age as the stone hatchets of that country, is
known as a thunderstone, and great medicinal powers are ascribed to it
by the natives. I must, however, return to the sharper forms of stone
implements.
|272|