CELTS.
OF all the forms of bronze instruments the hatchet or axe, to which
the name of celt has been applied, is perhaps the most common and the
best known. It is also probably among the earliest of the instruments
fabricated from metal, though in this country it is possible that some
of the cutting instruments, such as the knife-daggers, which required
a less amount of metal for their formation, are of equal or greater
antiquity.
These tools or weapons—for, like the American tomahawk, they seem
to have been in use for peaceful as well as warlike purposes—may be
divided into several classes. Celts may be described as flat; flanged,
or having ribs along the sides; winged, or having the side flanges
extended so as almost to form a socket for the handle on either side of
the blade, to which variety the name of palstave has been given; and
socketed. Of most of these classes there are several varieties, as will
be seen farther on.
The name of celt which has been given to these instruments is derived
from the doubtful Latin word “celtis” or “celtes,” a chisel, which is
in its turn said to be derived _à cœlando_ (from carving), and to be
the equivalent of _cœlum_.
The only author in whose works the word is found is St. Jerome, and it
is employed both in his Vulgate translation of the Book of Job[105] and
in a quotation from that book in his Epistle to Pammachius. The word
also occurs in an inscription recorded by Gruter and Aldus,[106] but as
this inscription is a modern forgery, it does not add to the authority
of the word “celtis.”
Mr. Knight Watson, Sec. S. A., in an interesting paper communicated to
the Society of Antiquaries of London,[107] has given several details
as to the origin and use of this word, which he considers to have
been founded on a misreading of the word _certe_, and the derivation
of which from _cœlo_ he regards as impossible. There can be no doubt,
as Beger pointed out two centuries ago, that a number of MSS. of the
Vulgate read _certe_ instead of _celte_ in the passage in Job already
mentioned, and that in all probability these are the most ancient and
the best. But this only adds to the difficulty of understanding how a
recently invented and an unknown word, such as _celte_ is presumed to
be, can have ever supplanted a well-known word like _certe_; and so
far as the Burial Service of the Roman Catholic Church is concerned
can have maintained its ground for centuries. Nor is this difficulty
diminished when we consider that the ordinary and proper translation of
the Hebrew לֹער is either “in æternum” or “in testimonium,” according
as the word is pointed לָעַר or לְעֵר, and that, so far as I am aware,
there is no other instance of its being translated “_certe_.” On the
other hand, a nearly similar word, פְעֵס “with a stylus,” or, as it is
translated, “a pen,” occurs in the same passage; and assuming that this
was by some accident read for לער by St. Jerome, he would have thought
that the word for stylus was used twice over, and have inserted some
word to designate a graving tool, by way of a synonym. The probability
of such an error would be increased if his MS. had the lines arranged
in couplets in accordance with its poetical character, the passage
standing thus when un-pointed:—
עפרתו ברול בעס
יתצבון בַצזר לער
Very possibly the word used by St. Jerome may not have been _celte_ but
_cœlo_, and the corruption into _celte_ in order to make a distinction
between heaven and a chisel would then at all events have been possible.
The other contention involves two extreme improbabilities—the one,
that St. Jerome, having in his second revision of the Bible translated
the passage as “in testimonium in petris sculpantur,” should in the
Vulgate have given the inaccurate rendering “certe sculpantur in
silice;” the other and the more extreme of the two, that the well-known
word _certe_ should have been ousted by a word like _celte_ had it been
utterly new-fangled.
Under any view of the case there are considerable difficulties, but as
the word celt has now obtained a firm hold in our language, it will be
convenient to retain it, whatever its origin or derivation.
It has been the fashion among some who are fond of novelties to call
these instruments “kelts,” possibly from some mental association of the
instruments with a Celtic or Keltic population. From some such cause
also some of the French antiquaries must have coined the new plural
to the word, _Celtœ_. Even in this country it has been said[108] with
regard to “the ancient weapon denominated the celt,” “Our antiquarians
have commonly ascribed them to the ancient Celtæ, and hence have given
them this unmeaning appellation.” If any one prefers pronouncing celt
as “kelt,” or celestial as “kelestial,” let him do so; but at all
events let us adhere to the old spelling. How the Romans of the time of
St. Jerome would have pronounced the word _cœlum_ or _celtis_ may be
inferred from the punning line of Ausonius with regard to Venus.[109]
“Orta salo, suscepta solo, patre edita cœlo.”
The first author of modern times whose use of the word in
connection with Celts I can trace is Beger, who, in his “Thesaurus
Brandenburgicus”[110] (1696), gives an engraving of a celt of the
palstave form, under the title Celtes, together with the following
dialogue:—
“Et nomen et instrumentum mihi obscurum est, infit ARCHÆOPHILUS;
Instrumentum Statuariorum est, respondit DULODORUS, qui simulacra
ex Cera, Alabastro, aliisque lapidum generibus cædunt et poliunt.
Græcis dicitur Ἐγκοπεὺς, quâ voce Lucianus usus est in Somnio, ubi cum
lusum non insuavem dixisset, Deos sculpere, et parva quædam simulacra
adornare, addit ἐγκοπέα γὰρ τινά μοι δοὺς, scilicet avunculus, id quod
Joh. Benedictus vertit, _Celte datâ_. Celte? excepit ARCHÆOPHILUS; at
nisi fallor hæc vox Latinis incognita est? Habetur, inquit DULODORUS,
in versione vulgatâ Libri Hiob c. 19 quamvis alii non _Celte_,
sed _Certe_ ibi legant, quod tamen minus quadrat. Quicquid sit,
instrumentum Statuariorum hoc esse, ex formâ patet, figuris incidendis
aptissima; neque enim opinio Molineti videtur admittenda, qui _Securim_
appellat, cum nullus aptandi manubrii locus huic faveat. Metallum
reposuit ARCHÆOPHILUS, minus videtur convenire. Instrumentum hoc ex ære
est, quod duritiem lapidum nescio an superare potuerit? Uti lapides
diversi sunt, regessit DULODORUS, ita diversa fuisse etiam metalla
instrumentorum iis cædendis destinatorum, facilè cesserim. Vet.
Gloss. Celtem _instrumentum ferreum_ dicit proculdubio quòd durioribus
lapidibus ferreum chalybe munitum servierit. Hoc autem non obstat,
ut æreum vel ceris, vel terris, vel lapidibus mollioribus fuerit
adhibitum. Si tamen res Tibi minus probetur, me non contradicente,
molliori vocabulo γλυφεῖον _cœlum_ poteris et appellare et credere.
Γλυφεῖα etiam Statuariorum instrumenta fuisse, ex allegato modò Luciano
planum est, ubi Humanitas, _si me relinquis_, inquit, σχῆμα δουλοπρεπὲς
ἀναλήψη, καὶ μολία, καὶ γλυφεῖα, καὶ κοπέας, καὶ κολαπτῆρας ἐν ταῖν
χεροῖν ἕξεις, _habitum servilem assumes_, _Vectes_, _COELA_, _CELTES_,
_Scalpra præ manibus habebis_.”
The idea of a bronze celt being a statuary’s chisel for carving in wax,
alabaster, and the softer kinds of stone will seem the less absurd if
we remember that, at the time when Beger wrote, the manner in which
such instruments were hafted was unknown, and that all antiquities of
bronze were generally regarded as being of Roman or Greek origin.
Dr. Olaf Worm, a Danish antiquary of the seventeenth century, was more
enlightened than Beger, for in his “Museum Wormianum,”[111] published
in 1655, he states his belief that bronze weapons had formerly been
in use in Denmark, and cites two flat or flanged celts, or _cunei_,
as he calls them, found in Jutland, which he regards as hand weapons
for close encounters. He also was, nevertheless, at a loss to know how
they were hafted, for he adds that had they but been provided with
shaft-holes he should have considered them to have been axes.
In a work treating of the bronze antiquities of Britain we must,
however, first consider the opinion of British antiquaries, by whom
the word celt had been completely adopted as the name for bronze
hatchets and axes by the middle of the last century. Borlase,[112] in
his “Antiquities of Cornwall,” 1754, speaking of some “spear-heads” of
copper mentioned by Leland, says that by the spear-heads he certainly
meant those which we (from Begerus) now call Celts. Leland’s words are
as follows:[113]—“There was found of late Yeres syns Spere Heddes,
Axis for Warre, and Swerdes of coper wrapped up in lynid scant perished
nere the Mount in S. Hilaries Paroch in Tynne Works;” so that it by no
means follows but that he was right in speaking of spear-heads, for if
there were any celts among the objects discovered they were probably
termed battle-axes by Leland.
Camden makes mention of the same find:[114] “At the foote of this
mountaine (St. Michael’s Mount), within the memorie of our Fathers,
whiles men were digging up of tin, they found Spear-heads, axes, and
swordes of brasse wrapped in linnen, such as were sometimes found
within the forrest of Hercinia in Germanie, and not long since in our
Wales. For evident it is by the monuments of ancient Writers that the
Greeks, the Cimbrians, and the Britans used brazen weapons, although
the wounds given with brasse bee lesse hurtfull, as in which mettall
there is a medicinable vertue to heale, according as _Macrobius_
reporteth out of Aristotle. But happily that age was not so cunning in
devising meanes to mischiefe and murthers as ours is.”
Hearne, the editor of Leland’s “Itinerary,” took a less philosophical
view of these instruments. Writing to Thoresby[115] in 1709, he
maintains that some old instruments of bronze found near Bramham Moor,
Yorkshire, are not the heads of British spears; on the contrary, they
are Roman, not axes used in their sacrifices, nor the heads of spears
and javelins, but chisels which were used to cut and polish the stones
in their tents. Such instruments were also used in making the Roman
highways and in draining their fens.
Plot[116] also, at a somewhat earlier date, asserted a Roman origin
for bronze celts, which he regarded as the heads of bolts, founding
his opinion mainly on two, which are engraved in the Museum Moscardi.
These, which are reproduced in the _Archæologia_, vol. v. Pl. VIII. 18
and 19, are of the palstave form, and were regarded by Moscardo[117]
as the heads of great darts to be thrown from a catapult. A flat celt
found in Staffordshire,[118] Plot takes to be the head of a Roman
_securis_ with which the _Popæ_ slew their sacrifices.
Rowland,[119] in his “Mona Antiqua Restaurata,” 1723, suggested that
looped palstaves fastened by a thong to a staff might be used as war
flails.
The imaginative Dr. Stukeley, in the year 1724, communicated to the
Society of Antiquaries a discourse on the use of celts, which is to be
found in the Minute Book of the Society. An abstract of it is given
by Mr. Lort[120] in his paper subsequently mentioned. Dr. Stukeley
undertook to show that celts were British and appertaining to the
Druids, who, when not using them to cut off the boughs of oak and
mistletoe, put them in their pouches, or hung them to their girdles
by the little ring or loop at the side. In a more sensible manner he
divided them into two classes, the recipient and the received; that is
to say, the socketed, in which the handle was received, and the flat
and palstave forms, which entered into a notch in the handle.
Borlase,[121] notwithstanding that he was under the impression that a
number of socketed celts found at Karnbrê in 1744 were accompanied by
Roman coins, one of them at least as late as the time of Constantius
I., did “not take them to be purely Roman, foreign, or of Italian
invention and workmanship.”
He argues that the Romans of Italy would not have made such instruments
of brass after Julius Cæsar’s time, when the superior hardness of iron
was so well understood, and that metal was so easily to be procured.
Farther, that no representations of such weapons occur on the Trajan
or Antonine Columns, that few specimens exist in the cabinets of the
curious in Italy, where they are regarded as Transalpine antiquities,
and that none have been found among the ruins of Herculaneum;[122] nor
are any published in the Museum Romanum or the Museum Kircherianum. He
concludes that they were made and used in Britain, but that though they
were originally of British invention and fabric, they were for the most
part made when the Britons had improved their arts under their Roman
masters, as most of them seem too correct and shapely for the Britons
before the Julian conquest.
As to the uses of celts, Borlase cites the various opinions of the
learned, and observes that if they had not been advanced by men of
learning it would be scarce excusable to mention some of them, much
less to refute them. They had been taken for heads of walking staffs,
for chisels to cut stone withal (as such instruments must have been
absolutely necessary in making the great Roman roads), as tools with
which to engrave letters and inscriptions, as the sickles with which
the Druids cut the sacred mistletoe, and as rests to support the
_lituus_ of the Roman augurs. After all, however, Borlase himself comes
to the somewhat lame conclusion that they formed the head or arming
of the spear, the javelin, or the arrow, and thinks that Mr. Rowland
comes the nearest to the truth of any author he has read, when he says
that they might be used with a string to draw them back, and something
like a feather to guide them in flying towards the enemy, and calls
them sling-hatchets. He concedes, however, that for such weighty heads
there was no occasion for feathers, and as for slinging of hatchets
against an enemy, he does not remember any instance, ancient or modern.
Some of the celts, moreover, are too light to do any execution if
thrown from the hand.
The Rev. Mr. Lort,[123] who communicated some observations on celts
to the Society of Antiquaries in 1776, differed from Dr. Borlase, and
regarded a large flat celt found in the Lower Furness as manifestly
designed to be held in the hand only, and much better adapted to the
chipping of stone than to any other use which has hitherto been found
out for it. He will not, however, take upon himself to assert that
some socketed celts, which he also describes, were designed for the
same purpose. Appended to the paper by Mr. Lort are notices of several
bronze celts, which at different times had been brought under the
notice of the Society of Antiquaries. Some which had been exhibited in
1735 were regarded by Mr. Benjamin Cooke and Mr. Collinson as Gaulish
weapons used by the Roman auxiliaries at the time of Claudius. Mr.
Cooke, however, took them to be axes, and mounted one of them on a
shaft, citing Homer as his authority for doing so, and speaking of the
ἀξίνην ἔυχαλκον.
The Rev. Samuel Pegge in 1787 makes some pertinent remarks
respecting celts in a letter to Mr. Lort, which is published in the
_Archæologia_.[124] He points out that from some of them having been
found in barrows associated with spear-heads of flint, it is probable
that some at least were military weapons. He also maintains that though
the use of bronze originally preceded that of iron, yet that regard
must be had to the circumstances of each country, so that it would not
follow that a bronze celt found in Ireland was prior in age to the
invention of iron. All that could be said was that it was older than
the introduction of iron into Ireland, and when that was, no one could
pretend to say. Mr. Pegge did not approve of the derivation of the
name of celt from _celtis_ or _cœlare_, but thought it derived from
the name of the Celtic people who used the instruments. In his opinion
the instruments were not Roman, especially as they were frequent in
Ireland and in places where the Romans never were settled. The specimen
on which he comments is of the palstave form, and, though it might be
mounted as a tool, he thinks it could never have served as an axe, but
it might have tipped a dart or javelin.
Douglas[125] was of opinion that the bronze arms found in this country
were not Roman, but that it was more reasonable to refer them to the
early inhabitants, of probably not less than two centuries B.C.
Mr. C. J. Harford, F.S.A.,[126] writing in 1801, expressed his
opinion that a clue as to the uses of celts might be obtained from a
consideration of similar instruments which had been brought from the
South Sea Islands. “Our rude forefathers doubtless attached the celt
by thongs to the handle, in the same manner as modern savages do; and,
like them, formed a most useful implement or destructive weapon from
these simple materials.” He thought that the metal celts might have
been fabricated abroad and exported to this country, just as we have
sent to the South Sea Islands an imitation in iron of the stone hatchet
there in use.
Coming down to later times, we find Sir Richard Colt Hoare,[127] who
discovered a few flat and flanged celts in the Wiltshire barrows,
regarding them as for domestic, and not for military, architectural,
or religious purposes. He thought that the flat form must be the
most ancient, from which the pattern of that with the socket for the
insertion of a handle was taken; for among the numerous specimens
described by Mr. Lort in the _Archæologia_, not one of the latter
pattern is mentioned as having been discovered in a barrow. As many
were found in Gaul, he rather supposed that they were imported from
the Continent; or, perhaps, the art of making them might have been
introduced from Gaul. From the method of hafting of one of those he
found (see Fig. 189), he seems to have regarded the whole of them as
chisels rather than hatchets.
Sir Joseph Banks,[128] in some observations communicated to the
Society of Antiquaries in 1818, on an ancient celt found near Boston,
Lincolnshire, pointed out the manner in which looped palstaves could
be hafted so as to serve either as axes, adzes, or chisels. He thought
that they were ill adapted for any warlike purposes, and regarded them
as tools such as might be used in hollowing out the trunks of trees to
form canoes, and suggested that they were secured to their handles by
strings tied round them in the same manner as the stone axes used in
the South Sea Islands were fastened to theirs.
About the year 1816 the Rev. John Dow,[129] in some remarks on the
ancient weapon denominated the celt, advocated the opinion that it was
an axe, and probably a weapon of war. He also traces its connection
with the stone celt, from which he considered it to have been developed.
About the same year the Rev. John Hodgson, secretary of the Society
of Antiquaries of Newcastle-on-Tyne, communicated to that society a
valuable memoir in the shape of “An Enquiry into the Æra when Brass
was used in purposes to which Iron is now applied,”[130] of which
mention has already been made in the Introductory Chapter. He thought
that celts were tools which were well adapted for use as wedges for
splitting wood, or that with wooden hafts they might be used as chisels
for hollowing canoes and for similar purposes, some instruments found
with them being undoubtedly gouges. As to their date, he thought that
bronze began to give way to iron in Britain nearly as soon as it did
in Greece, and that consequently the celts, &c., found in this island
belonged to an era 500, or at least 400 years, B.C.
In 1839 Mr. Rickman[131] communicated to the Society of Antiquaries a
paper on the Antiquity of Abury and Stonehenge, in the notes to which
he propounds the theory that the socketed celts were used merely as
chisels, with hafts of wood inserted in the socket. They could be then
either held in the hand or by means of a withe, like a blacksmith’s
chisel, while they were struck with a stone hammer.
Among writers of comparatively modern times, the first whom I have to
mention is the late Mr. G. V. Du Noyer,[132] who in 1847 communicated
to the Archæological Institute two papers on the classification of
bronze celts, which are still of great value and interest. He traces
the gradual development in form from the bronze celt shaped like a
wedge to that which is socketed, and shows that an important element
in the transition from one form to the other has been the method
of hafting. He also enters into the subjects of the casting and
ornamentation of celts; and as in subsequent pages I shall have to
refer to these as well as to the methods of hafting, I content myself
here with citing Mr. Du Noyer’s papers as being worthy of all credit.
In 1849 Mr. James Yates communicated a paper to the Archæological
Institute of a far more speculative kind than those of Mr. Du Noyer,
his object being to prove that among the various uses of bronze celts
one of the most important was the application of them in destroying
fortifications and entrenchments, in making roads and earthworks, and
in similar military operations. He confines his inquiry, however, to
those which were adapted to be fitted to straight wooden handles.
Following in the steps of some of the older antiquaries, he appears
to regard them as of Roman origin, and identifies them with the Roman
_dolabra_, an instrument which he thinks was used as a chisel or a
crowbar. In fact, he was persuaded that the celt was commonly used not
as a hatchet, but as a spud or a crowbar. Had he but been acquainted
with the ancient handles, such as have been discovered in the Austrian
salt-mines and elsewhere, he would probably have come round to another
opinion as to the ordinary method of hafting, though it is of course
possible that in some instances these instruments may have been mounted
and used as spuds. Had he practically tried mounting them and using
them as crowbars, he would have found that with but slight strain the
shafts would break or the celts become loosened upon them. And had he
been better versed in archæology, he would have known that whatever
was the form of the Roman _dolabra_, or whatever the uses for which
it served, it can hardly have differed from their other implements
in being made of bronze and not of iron; and he would have thought
twice before engraving bronze celts from Cornwall and Furness as
illustrations of the Roman _dolabra_ in Smith’s “Dictionary of Greek
and Roman Antiquities.”
The ring or loop, which so often is found on the side of celts of
the palstave and socketed forms, was thought by Mr. Yates to have
been principally of use to assist in carrying them, a dozen or twenty
perhaps being strung together, or a much smaller number tied to the
soldier’s belt or girdle. He also thought that they might serve for the
attachment of a thong or chain to draw the instrument out of a wall,
should it become wedged among the stones in the process of destruction.
The next essay on celts and their classification which I must adduce
was written by the late Rev. Thomas Hugo, F.S.A.,[133] who followed
much the same system as Mr. Du Noyer, so far as the development of the
socketed celt was concerned, though he differed from him with regard
to the method of hafting, as he was persuaded that, in general, celts
were mounted with a straight shaft, like spuds. He considered that the
loop was not used for securing the celt to its haft, but for hanging
it up at home when not in use, or for suspending it from the soldier’s
girdle whilst on the march.
Mr. Hugo’s paper was followed by some supplementary remarks from
Mr. Syer Cuming, who suggests that a thong may have passed through
the loop by which the weapon might be propelled, and contends that
socketed celts are neither chisels nor axe-blades, but the ferrules of
spear-shafts, which might be fixed in the ground, or even used at times
as offensive weapons.
The name of the late Mr. Thomas Wright[134] has already been mentioned.
In his various works and papers he claims a Roman origin for bronze
celts and swords, though admitting that they may occasionally have been
made in the countries in which they are found.
Among other modern writers who have touched upon the subject of celts,
I may mention that accomplished antiquary, the late Mr. Albert Way,
F.S.A., whose remarks in connection with an exhibition of bronze
antiquities at a meeting of the Archæological Institute in 1861[135]
are well worth reading. I may also refer to the late Sir W. R. Wilde,
in his “Catalogue of the Copper and Bronze Antiquities in the Museum of
the Royal Irish Academy,” published in the same year; to Mr. Franks, in
the “Horæ Ferales;” to Sir John Lubbock, in his “Prehistoric Times;”
and to General A. Lane Fox (now Pitt-Rivers), in his excellent lecture
on Primitive Warfare, section iii.[136]
Canon Greenwell, in his “British Barrows,”[137] has also devoted a
few pages to the consideration of bronze celts and axe-heads, more
especially in connection with interments in sepulchral mounds.
Foreign writers I need hardly cite, but I may mention a remarkable idea
that has been promulgated by Professor Stefano de Rossi[138] as to
celts having served as money, which has, however, been shown by Count
Gozzadini to be unfounded.
In conclusion, I may also venture to refer to an address[139] which
I delivered to the Society of Antiquaries on the occasion of an
exhibition of bronze antiquities in their apartments in January, 1873.
* * * * *
In treating of the different forms of celts on the present occasion, I
shall divide them into the following classes:—
Flat celts.
Flanged celts.
Winged celts and palstaves, with and without loops.
Socketed celts.
What are known as tanged celts may perhaps be more properly included
under the head of chisels, to which class of tools it is not unlikely
that some of the narrow celts of the other forms should be referred.
It is difficult to draw a hard and fast line between the flat celts
and the flanged, and between these latter and the so-called palstaves.
I propose, therefore, to include the flanged celts, which are not
provided with a stop-ridge to prevent their being driven into their
haft, in the same chapter with the flat celts, and to treat of those
which have a stop-ridge in the same chapter as the palstaves, with and
without a loop. In a subsequent chapter I shall speak as to the manner
in which these instruments were probably hafted.