METHODS OF HAFTING CELTS.
ANY account of the various forms of celts and palstaves which have been
discovered in this country, such as that attempted in the preceding
chapters, would be incomplete without some observations as to the
manner in which they were probably hafted or mounted for use, and some
account of the discoveries which throw light upon that subject.
In a previous chapter I have cited numerous opinions of the older
school of antiquaries as to the nature of these instruments or weapons,
and the uses which they were intended to serve. Many of these opinions
are so palpably absurd that it is needless again to refer to them.
Others which regard the instruments as having been mounted in such a
manner as to serve for axes or adzes, for chisels, or for spud-like
tools or weapons, have an evident foundation in the necessities of
the case. There can, in the first place, be no doubt that celts and
palstaves were cutting tools or weapons. There can, in the second
place, be but little doubt that they were not destined for direct use
in the hand without the addition of any shaft or handle. In fact, with
the palstave and socketed forms, it is evident that special provisions
are made for a haft of some kind. In the third place, this haft,
whether long or short, must either have been straight or crooked. If
straight, a kind of chisel or spud must have resulted; if crooked or
L-shaped, an axe, hatchet, or adze.
It is possible that the same form of bronze instruments may have been
mounted both with straight and with L-shaped handles; but, as will
subsequently be seen, the probability, judging from what few ancient
handles have been discovered, is that the great majority were mounted
with elbowed handles as axes. At the same time, from the form and
small size of some celts, especially of some of those of the socketed
variety, it is probable that they were used as chisels. Indeed,
judging from the analogy of some other forms, and from the discovery at
Everley, mentioned at p. 163, this may be regarded as certain.
As the discoveries of the original hafts of bronze celts have
principally been made upon the Continent, I shall, in treating of this
part of my subject, be compelled to have recourse to foreign rather
than British illustrations. It will also, in speaking of the method of
hafting, be desirable to make an attempt to trace the successive stages
of development of the socketed celts; and, in connection with this part
of the subject also, foreign examples will become of service.
And first, in illustration of the use of bronze blades as axes, rather
than as spuds, or chisels of any kind, I may mention an instrument
not uncommon in Hungary, and occasionally occurring in other parts of
Southern Europe, which is perforated and similar in general form to our
modern axe-heads of iron and steel. In Scandinavia also other varieties
of these perforated axe-heads have been found. The common axe-like
type has also been discovered among Assyrian antiquities. Another
and distinct form which has been found in Egypt mounted as an axe or
hatchet, with a wooden handle, is a flat blade not unlike the ordinary
flat celt, except that instead of tapering at the butt-end it expands
so as to have two more or less projecting horns, by which it was bound
against the haft in a shallow socket provided for it. Egyptian axes
mounted in this manner may be seen in many museums, and have been
frequently figured in works on Egyptian antiquities.[528] The blade of
an axe of this kind, formerly in the collection of the Rev. Sparrow
Simpson, D.D., F.S.A.,[529] and by him presented to the British Museum,
bears an inscription in hieroglyphics upon it, with cartouches probably
containing the name of a shepherd king of the sixteenth or seventeenth
dynasty. In my own collection is another bronze blade of the same
shape and size, and with the same inscription, except that the names
in the cartouches are different. Unfortunately this part of the blade
is corroded, but Dr. S. Birch thinks that the cartouches contain the
name either of Ramses I. or of a subordinate Ramses of the eighteenth
dynasty. The hieroglyphics are the same on both faces of the blade, but
on one run from right to left, and on the other from left to right. A
hatchet of the same form, still bound to its haft, was found in the
tomb of Queen Aah-Hotep,[530] of the eighteenth dynasty.
Some of the stone hatchets from Ecuador, in South America, are also
provided with projecting ears, and were tied against their helves in
the same manner.
The stone axe, said to be that of Montezuma II., preserved in the
Ambras Museum at Vienna, and shown in Fig. 180, may also be of this
kind. Copper or bronze blades of this crescent or cheese-cutter form,
with two projecting lugs at the top of the narrow part of the blade,
have been found in Peru.
[Illustration: Fig. 180.—Stone Axe of Montezuma II.]
Broad blades of bronze, in form more like the ordinary flat celts, but
with the projections at the top, have been found in the same country. I
have one about 5 inches long and 3 inches wide, with strong lugs at the
top 2 inches long. It came from Eastern Peru.
Some blades of this form were hafted in a rather different manner, as
will be seen by means of Fig. 181.
[Illustration: Fig. 181.—Aymara Indian Hatchet. ¼]
This represents an iron hatchet used by the Aymara Indians, of the
province of La Paz, Bolivia, which was brought from that country and
presented to me by my friend, the late Mr. David Forbes, F.R.S. In
this form the handle is split, and the blade is secured by a leather
thong, two turns of which pass under the two lugs of the blade, and
thus prevent it from coming forward; two other turns pass over the
butt-end, and thus prevent it from being driven backwards by any blow;
while all the coils of the thong hold the cleft stick firmly against
the two faces of the blade. Although no celts with the T-shaped
butt-end have been found in Britain, or, indeed, in Western Europe,
I have thought it worth while to engrave this curious example of the
method of mounting such blades, especially as the central projections
of the Irish form of celt, like Fig. 45, may have been secured by
thongs in a somewhat analogous manner.
[Illustration: Fig. 182.—Modern African Axe of Iron. ¼]
Turning now to the other British forms of celts, of which, as already
observed, the flat and doubly tapering blades, like Fig. 2, seem to
be the most ancient, it is probable that these were hafted by the
butt-end being merely driven into a club or handle of wood, in the same
manner as many stone celts appear to have been mounted. The modern iron
hatchet, from Western Africa, shown in Fig. 182, will give a good idea
of the manner in which the bronze celts that are so much like it in
form were probably hafted. Another modern African axe has been engraved
by Sir John Lubbock.[531] It is, of course, possible that some of the
ancient flat celts were mounted after the manner of spuds, as is, by
several German and Danish antiquaries, held to have been the case with
those of the palstave form. It must, however, be borne in mind that
as a rule the stone celts, which the earliest of those in bronze must
in all probability have supplanted, were mounted after the manner of
hatchets. Moreover, the few stone celts, the axis of the straight
handle of which was in the same direction as the blade, appear to have
been hafted with short handles as chisels, and not with long shafts as
spuds. Among those found still attached to their hafts in the Swiss
lake dwellings, some few were mounted in short stag’s-horn handles
as chisels, but the majority were fitted for use as hatchets, with a
club-like handle, in which a short stag’s-horn socket was mortised as
affording a receptacle for the stone, harder and less liable to split
than those of wood. In some cases, however, the handles were made from
a bough of a tree with a short projecting branch, which was cleft to
receive the stone. One of these, from Robenhausen, is shown in Fig.
183, which is copied from Dr. Keller’s work.[532]
[Illustration: Fig. 183.—Stone Axe, Robenhausen.]
In Britain the traces of the original handles of bronze celts have been
not unfrequently found, though the actual wood had perished.
In a barrow in the parish of Butterwick,[533] Canon Greenwell, F.R.S.,
found what he describes as “an axe-blade of bronze,” engraved as Fig.
2, which lay with a skeleton, and “the handle, which had been under
two feet in length, could be plainly traced by means of a dark line of
decayed wood extending from the hips towards the heels; moreover, from
the presence of decayed wood on the sides of the blade, it would seem
as if the axe had been protected by a wooden sheath. To all appearance
the weapon had been worn slung from the waist.” In this case the blade
had been fixed, apparently after the manner of Fig. 182, into a solid
handle to the depth of two inches, as is evident from the surface of
the metal being oxidized on that part of the blade differently from
what it is elsewhere.
In a barrow at Shuttlestone,[534] near Parwich, Derbyshire, Mr. Bateman
found about the middle of the left thigh of a skeleton a bronze celt,
of “the plainest axe-shaped type. The cutting edge was turned upwards
towards the upper part of the person, and the instrument itself has
been inserted vertically into a wooden handle by being driven in for
about two inches at the narrow end—at least, the grain of the wood
runs in the same direction as the longest dimension of the celt.” “A
fact,” adds Mr. Bateman, “not unworthy of the notice of any inclined
to explain the precise manner of mounting these curious implements.”
It may be remarked, however, that no part of the handle itself, beyond
this grain upon the bronze, was preserved, and that this direction of
the grain of the wood would be quite consistent with the blade having
been mounted in a side branch from the shaft, after the manner of the
Swiss stone celt shown in Fig. 183.
It appears to me possible that in other cases where the marks of the
grain of the wood, or even the traces of the wood itself, have been
found upon celts, running along and not across the blade, the somewhat
hasty conclusion has been drawn that they were attached to the end of
straight shafts instead of into side branches; and that possibly this
opinion, when once accepted, may have affected insensibly the reports
of the position of the blade of the celts with regard to the bodies
with which they were found, and to the traces of their shafts.
The opinion first enounced by J. A. Fabricius that the celt was the
ancient German _framea_ or spear mentioned by Tacitus, seems also
insensibly to have affected observers.
There is an account given by Thorlacius[535] of the discovery in a
tumulus near Store-Hedinge, in Denmark, of a palstave with the wooden
shaft an ell and a quarter long, into which the blade was inserted; the
wood, as might have been expected, running down between the side wings;
at the other end of the shaft there was a leather strap wound round for
about a quarter of an ell. The whole was so decayed that not the least
part of it could be taken out of the ground. Although nothing appears
to be said with regard to the position of the palstave with respect to
the shaft, this has been cited by Lisch[536] and others in evidence of
this form of instrument having been mounted spud-fashion, as a kind
of chisel-ended spear. A more conclusive instance is that adduced by
Westendorp,[537] who has figured a socketed celt without a loop, found
in a fen in the province of Groningen, Holland, mounted in this manner
on a straight shaft. I have, however, already remarked that some of the
socketed celts of this character were probably used as chisels.
[Illustration: Fig. 184.—Bronze Axe, Hallein.]
Whatever reliance may be placed upon the older discoveries, all those
of more recent times are in favour of the instruments of the palstave
form having been mounted as axes, hatchets, or adzes. In the museum at
Salzburg, Austria, there are at least four crooked handles for this
kind of blade, found in the salt-mines of Hallein, one of which is
shown in the annexed cut. I am not, however, sure whether the blade
was actually found with the haft in which it is now placed, nor, if
so, whether it was originally in its present position with the loop
outwards. It looks much more like an Italian than a German specimen,
which has been added to the haft in recent times, and it has not the
appearance of having been exposed for centuries to the action of salt.
It seems more probable that the salt, which has fortunately had the
power of preserving the wood, would in course of years have dissolved
the whole of the metal, assuming that at the time when the haft was
lost, or left in the mine, a blade was still attached to it, than that
it should have left the metal, as here, almost uninjured. In this
instance, moreover, the haft is perfect, and not, as in some of the
other cases, broken, so as to raise an inference of their having been
thrown away. The position of the blade with the loop outwards is also
suspicious.
A broken example of the same kind of haft, also from the salt-mines
of Hallein, has been figured by Klemm,[538] and is to be seen in the
British Museum. There are others in the museum at Linz.
Handles of the same kind, intended for palstaves, have been found in
the Italian lake dwellings. In some discovered in the “palafitta” of
Castione,[539] the notch is in the transverse direction to the shaft,
as if the blade had been mounted as an adze, and not as an axe. In
others the notch is longitudinal, and not transverse. In one instance
the side branch has no notch, but there is a shoulder on it, as if it
had served for a socketed celt.
A looped palstave, mounted in a similar branched handle, has been found
at the lake dwelling of Mœrigen,[540] on the Lac de Bienne. In this
case also the loop is on the farther side of the shaft.
That the flanged and winged celts and palstaves were, as a rule,
destined to be mounted in the manner of hatchets or adzes, and not as
spuds or spear-heads, is to some extent witnessed by the development
of their form; the progressive increase in the size of the wings and
flanges, more especially about the middle of the blade, appearing to be
intended as a precaution against lateral strains, such as the blade of
an axe undergoes, rather than against a mere thrust, such as that to
which the head of a spear or lance is subject. Of course the stop-ridge
is a preservative against the blade being driven back into its handle,
in whatever way it is mounted. But the flanges, at first slight, then
expanding at the middle of the blade, then becoming projecting wings,
and finally being bent over, so as to form side sockets on each side of
the blade, seem rather the result of successive endeavours to steady
the blade against a sideways strain.
This development can best be traced in the series of flat celts,
flanged and winged celts, and palstaves, discovered in the South of
France.
Even the long narrow palstaves, which have so much the appearance of
chisels, seem to have been mounted on crooked shafts. There is a long
German[541] form with a narrow butt above the stop-ridge, and with
but slight side flanges, which are continued down along the sides of
the blade below the ridge, that seems much more like a chisel than a
hatchet. The usual length of this form is about 6 inches, and the width
at the edge about 1½ inches, that of the butt-end, including the side
flanches, being about ¾ inch.
[Illustration: Fig. 185.—Raron, Brigue. ½]
But that palstaves of this kind were mounted as hatchets will be
evident from an inspection of Fig. 185, which represents a specimen in
my own collection, found in the district of Raron, near Brigue, Valais,
Switzerland. It is, as will be seen, in fact, a socketed celt, but
with the socket at right angles to the axis of the blade. The reason
why it should have been cast in this manner is probably to be found in
the fact that boughs of trees with a smaller branch at right angles
to them are not easily met with, though such boughs are best adapted
for conversion into the helves of this kind of hatchet. Some ingenious
bronze-founder of old times conceived the idea of producing a hatchet
which did not require a crooked helve, but for hafting which any
ordinary straight stick would serve; and we have here his new form of
axe-head. In practice, however, it was probably found both to balance
badly, and to be expensive in metal, and the design appears not to have
spread, as up to the present time this specimen seems to be unique. The
most remarkable features in it have still to be noticed. The pattern
from which it was cast seems to have been a palstave already mounted
on its haft, and we have here the smooth and rounded end of the bough,
with the smaller side branch running off at right angles, reproduced
in bronze. Even the band by which the blade was secured in the cleft
part of the handle is reproduced as a spiral moulding. The banding
which extends to the mouth of the socket is also spiral, and probably
represents a binding round the original wooden handle at the part
where, from experience, it was found most liable to break. The straight
haft of this hatchet was secured in its place by a bronze rivet passing
through the socket from side to side, which is still in its place,
though all trace of the wood has disappeared.
With this singular celt was found a small dagger, 6½ inches long,
which had been secured to its hilt by four rivets, and a penannular
bracelet decorated with ring ornaments. It is remarkable how well the
discovery of this form of celt bears out the theoretical suggestions
of Sir Joseph Banks,[542] Sir Samuel Meyrick,[543] Mr. Dunoyer,[544]
and others, including Sir W. Wilde.[545] Indeed, Dr. Richard
Richardson[546] many years ago advanced the same opinion as to the
manner in which such celts were hafted.
With regard to the usual manner of mounting those of the socketed form
there can be but little doubt, as in some few instances the original
handles have been preserved with them.
[Illustration: Fig. 186.—Edenderry. 1/6]
One such, found in the bed of the river Boyne, near Edenderry, King’s
County, has been figured by Wilde,[547] whose cut, by the kind
permission of the Royal Irish Academy, is here reproduced as Fig. 186.
The helve is only 13¾ inches long, but seems well adapted to the size
of the blade. So far as I know this is the only instance of such a
discovery within the United Kingdom.
In Fig. 187, however, is shown an Italian socketed celt of a common
form, with the original handle still attached. This specimen is in my
own collection, and was found about the year 1872 in the neighbourhood
of Chiusi, Tuscany. With it were another, also retaining its handle,
a large _fibula_ of silver, a scarabæus, and many small square plates
of bronze, each having a fylfot cross upon it, probably the ornaments
of a girdle. All these objects had been buried in an urn, which was
covered by a slab of stone, and most of them are to be seen in the
Etruscan Museum at Florence. With the exception of a fracture not far
from the angle, the handle of my specimen is perfect. The preservation
is due to its having been entirely coated with thin plates of bronze,
the sides of which overlap, and have been secured round the handle by
round-headed nails about ¾ inch apart.
[Illustration: Fig. 187.—Chiusi. ½]
This plating is turned over square at the end of the handle, where
there is a little projecting bronze eye, through which a ring may have
passed, so as to serve for its suspension. At the sides above the celt
there are some larger round-headed nails, or possibly rivets; and the
end of the branch which goes into the socket appears to be secured by a
rivet, which passes through from face to face. At the end of the handle
itself, above the celt, is a nearly circular flat bronze plate, with a
round-headed nail in the middle to attach it to the wood. The fracture
exposes the wood inside the plates, which has been preserved by the
salts, or oxide, of copper. It has been thought to be oak. On the blade
of the celt are some flakes of oxide of iron, as if it had lain in
contact with some articles made of that metal. Indeed, from the form,
as well as from the objects found with it, the presumption is that this
instrument belongs to quite the end of the Bronze Age of Italy, or to
the transitional period between bronze and iron.
It may be well here to mention that celts of iron of the flat form,
with projections at the sides like Fig. 45; of the palstave kind, with
the semicircular side sockets; and of the socketed form, have been
found in the cemetery at Hallstatt, in Austria, the researches in
which of Herr Ramsauer have been described by Baron Von Sacken. These
discoveries seem to show that all three varieties were still in use at
the close of the Bronze Period. In the same cemetery celts of the two
last-mentioned forms were found in bronze, and palstaves occurred with
the wings formed of bronze and the blade of iron.
In 1866 I exhumed from this cemetery with my own hands, when in company
with Sir John Lubbock, a socketed celt of iron, with a portion of the
haft still in it. The celt is attached to a branch of the main handle,
which projects at an angle of about 80°. This has been split off from
the handle, only a small part of which remains attached; and it is this
portion only of the wood which has been preserved by the infiltration
of some salts of iron, while the rest, which was detached from contact
with metal, has disappeared. The wood of which the handle was made
appears to be fir. On an iron palstave from the same spot it seems to
be oak. On two bronze palstaves from France in my own collection, one
from Amiens and the other from the Seine, at Paris, the portions of
wood which still remain attached to the blades appear also to be oak.
In the Hallstatt specimen the inclination of the blade seems to have
been towards the hand, and the part of the handle beyond the branch
which enters the socket presents some appearance of having been bound
with an iron ferrule, probably with the view of preventing it from
splitting. The projection is somewhat longer proportionally than that
in Fig. 185, and the end appears to have been truncated, and not
rounded.
There have been in this country a few instances of the discovery of
bronze rings in company with palstaves and socketed celts, and these
rings may possibly have served a similar purpose, though it must be
confessed that such an use is purely conjectural. That shown in Fig.
188 was found in company with a bronze palstave without a loop, but
much like Fig. 74, at Winwick,[548] near Warrington, Lancashire, and
was kindly lent me by Dr. James Kendrick, who in 1858[549] suggested
that it was a “sort of ferrule to put round the handle of the palstave
to prevent the wood from splitting when the instrument was struck.” The
ornament on the ring, somewhat like the “broad arrow” of modern times,
is of much the same character as the shield-like pattern below the
stop-ridge of some palstaves. In the British Museum is a stone mould
from Northumberland for flat rings, 3 inches in diameter, and for flat
celts; but such rings probably served some other purpose.
[Illustration: Fig. 188.—Winwick. ½]
Another bronze ring, 1⅔ inches in diameter, was found with a socketed
celt in the Thames,[550] opposite Somerset House, but here the actual
association of the two is doubtful.
I have already expressed a doubt whether the celt from Tadcaster,
Yorkshire, and now in the British Museum, had, when found, the bronze
ring with a jet bead upon it passing through the loop. The ring itself
is made not of one continuous piece of metal, but of stout wire, with
the ends abutting against each other, and nothing would be easier for
the workman who found the three objects than to pass the ring through
the loop of the celt and the hole of the bead. I have myself received
from Hungary two socketed celts, each having imperfect penannular
bracelets passed through the loop in the same manner, though they
certainly had no original connection with the celts. It is, however,
but right to mention that in the British Museum is the upper part of a
celt with an octagonal neck, found with other objects near Kensington,
on the loop of which is a small ring, barely large enough to encircle
the loop. Of what service this could have been it is difficult to
imagine.
If the association of the larger rings and the celts must be given up,
it is needless to cite the opinions which have been held as to the use
of the one in connection with the other. Some references are given in
the note.[551]
The early Iron Age of Denmark is no doubt considerably later in date
than that of Hallstatt, but in several of the discoveries of objects
of that period in Denmark socketed celts of iron have been found still
attached to their helves. In the Nydam find[552], described by Mr.
Conrad Engelhardt, the majority of the axes were of the ordinary form,
with eyes for the shafts; but there were some also of the form of the
socketed celt, though without any loops. These were mounted as axes,
and not as adzes, on crooked handles about 17 inches long. The helves
of axes of the ordinary form were from 23 to 32 inches in length. In
the Vimose find[553] there were several of these iron celts, one of
which was thought to have been mounted on a crooked handle, but the
others appear to have been mounted as chisels.
The palstaves with the edges transverse to the septum between the
side flanges seem to have been mounted in precisely the same manner
as those of the ordinary form, except that when attached to their
handles they formed adzes, and not axes. It has been suggested[554]
that the palstaves of the ordinary form may also have been mounted as
adzes, and probably this was so in some exceptional cases. Mention has
already been made of some Italian helves with transverse notches for
the reception of the blade. Some of the flat celts may have also been
mounted as adzes by binding them against the shorter end of an L-shaped
handle, in the same manner as the Egyptians fixed their adze blades.
In some palstaves, but more especially in those of the South of Europe,
there is at the butt-end of the blade a kind of dovetailed notch, which
appears to have been formed by hammering over a part of the jets or
runners of the original castings, which were left projecting a short
distance instead of being broken off short at the blade. Whether the
hammering over was for the purpose of rounding the angles or for that
of forming this dovetailed notch is somewhat uncertain; it is, however,
possible that one or more pins or rivets may have been driven through
the handle, so as to catch the dovetails and retain the blade in its
place. It is not often the case that this portion of the blade is so
long that it would have gone through the handle and have allowed of
a pin beyond it, as suggested by Mr. Dunoyer[555] in the case of a
long palstave, with a rivet-hole near the butt-end of the blade. A
palstave, found in a tomb in the department of Loir et Cher,[556] by
my friend the late Abbé Bourgeois, is provided with a rivet-hole near
the top, counter-sunk on either side so as to guide a pin into the
place intended for it; and it seems probable, as the Abbé suggests,
that this was connected with the securing of the blade, which is
destitute of a loop, to the helve. Of six thin flat bronze celts, 7
or 8 inches long, from the Island of Thermia,[557] or Cythnos, in the
Greek Archipelago, which are now in the British Museum, three that
are broad are provided with square or lozenge-shaped holes towards
the upper end of the blade, and three that are narrower are without.
A flanged celt from Italy,[558] 6 inches long, has a circular hole in
the same position, which may have received a pin. Some contrivance
for keeping blades of smooth bronze fast in their handles must have
been necessary or desirable from the earliest times. With stone celts
we often find that the butt-end destined to be let into the wooden
or horn socket was purposely roughened. With bronze, however, such a
process does not seem to have been adopted to any extent; and probably
with blades of bronze, so much less tapering than those of stone, the
difficulty of keeping them in place was surmounted by attaching them
with some sort of resinous or pitchy cement. A safe remedy against
slipping out was no doubt found in the addition of the ring or loop
to the side, which there can be but little doubt served for a cord to
pass through, so as to hold the blade back to the handle. In a socketed
celt, 5½ inches long, found in the Seine, at Paris, and now in my own
collection, not only is the wood preserved in the socket by saturation
with some salt of copper, but within the upper part of the loop there
are distinct traces of a cord which was apparently formed of vegetable
fibre. The Irish palstave, Fig. 105, with the curved projection instead
of the usual loop, seems to show that it was only against the upper
part of the loop that the strain came. No doubt, however, there was
more strength in the loop attached to the blade at both ends than in
the mere neb or projection. Some Italian socketed celts have similar
projecting nebs, one on either side. In the case of the palstaves and
celts with two loops, it seems probable that the handle must have been
somewhat prolonged beyond the side branch, which received the palstave
or went into the socket of the celt.
It has been stated that some of the Spanish palstaves[559] with two
loops were, when first discovered, attached to a straight handle of
wood. But this opinion may have been formed from the grain of the wood
impressed on the upper part of the blade running along and not across
it. In the first account[560] given of the discovery, these palstaves
were regarded as having been used for _picking_ out the strata of coal,
and one of them is said to have been firmly attached to a wooden handle
by means of thongs interlaced and held by notches in the wood. This
handle was described as having been straight, so that the instrument
was fitted to be used as a crowbar and not as a hatchet. But inasmuch
as the groove for the handle is only 2¼ inches long and ½ inch wide,
while the length of the blade projecting beyond the handle is nearly 5
inches, it is almost impossible for it to have served in this manner.
Axe-heads of bronze of the modern form with an eye through them to
receive a straight helve have not been found in this country, though,
as already observed, they are not uncommon in Hungary, Southern
Germany, and Italy. That the form was already known in Greece in
the Homeric Age is evident from the feat of skill in shooting an
arrow through the shaft holes of a number of axe-heads, arranged in
a row, recorded in the Odyssey.[561] I have in my collection a fine
double-edged axe, or πέλεκυς, from Greece, 8½ inches in length, with a
round shaft-hole ⅞ inch in diameter. I have also two from Salamis.
Looking at the widespread distribution of perforated stone implements,
especially battle-axes, throughout Europe, it seems strange that
so few bronze weapons of the same class should be found. Possibly,
however, these stone weapons may have remained in use even until the
latter part of the Bronze Period, as they certainly did through the
earlier part of it. In this country it seems doubtful whether any of
the perforated battle-axes of stone belong to a time when bronze was
absolutely unknown, as bronze knife-daggers, like Fig. 279, have so
often been found associated with them in interments. Hungary is the
country in which the perforated bronze battle-axes seem to have arrived
at their fullest development, many of them being of graceful form and
beautiful workmanship. The perforated copper implements of that country
were probably used for agricultural purposes, and I see no reason for
assigning them to so early a date as the commencement of the Bronze
Period of Hungary. They may, indeed, belong to a much later period.
It is hard to account for this absence of perforated axes of bronze
in Britain, but various causes seem to have conduced to render their
introduction difficult. When first bronze came into use it must have
been extremely scarce and valuable; and to cast an axe-head in bronze,
like one of the perforated axe-hammers of stone, would have required
not only a considerably greater amount of the then precious metal than
was required for a flat hatchet-head, but would also have involved
a far higher skill in the art of casting. Moreover, the flat form
of these simple blades rendered them well adapted for being readily
drawn out to a sharp cutting edge, and when once they had come into
general use they would not have been readily superseded by those of
another form, hafted in a different method, even were that method more
simple. If the bronze celts were mainly in use for peaceful industries,
while the warlike battle-axes were made of stone, the progressive
modifications in the shape of the former would be less likely to
be affected by the characteristics of the latter. It must also be
remembered that in France,[562] which then as now set the fashion to
Britain, perforated axe-heads of stone were very seldom used, and those
of bronze were in the north of the country unknown.
But, to return to the celts of the British Islands, there can, I think,
be but little doubt that the loop is, as already described, connected
with the method of mounting these instruments on their hafts; and is
not intended for the attachment of a cord, by which they might be
withdrawn and recovered after they had been thrown at the enemy. Like
the American tomahawks, they may, no doubt, have occasionally been used
as “missile hatchets,” the “missiles secures” of Sidonius;[563] but
the days of young Sigimer, whose followers were provided with these
weapons, are many centuries more recent than those to which the bronze
celts must be referred.
In the same manner, any idea of the loops having merely served for
hanging these instruments at the girdle may be at once discarded. For
such a purpose the projection which we find substituted for the loop
would be useless, and the presence of two loops would be superfluous.
[Illustration: Fig. 189.—Everley. 1/1]
On the whole, we may conclude that the majority of these instruments
were mounted for use, somewhat in the manner described, so as to serve
as axes or adzes. A smaller proportion of them may, however, not
improbably have been provided with short straight handles, to serve as
chisels, especially the socketed celts of small size and without loops.
This is the more probable as several socketed instruments closely
resembling them in character cannot be regarded as other than chisels
and gouges. No example, however, of a socketed celt provided with a
handle of this kind has as yet been found. The little instrument of
brass fixed into a handle made of stag’s horn, which was found in a
cist in a barrow at Everley,[564] Wilts, by Sir R. Colt Hoare, has more
the appearance of being a tanged chisel, such as will subsequently be
described, than a flat celt. It is shown full size in Fig. 189, which I
have copied from Sir R. C. Hoare’s plate. There were no bones or ashes
found in the cist, but several pointed instruments, and what appears
to be a kind of long, flat bead of bone, as well as two whetstones of
freestone, and a hone of a blueish colour had been deposited with it.
Professor Worsaae[565] has published an engraving of a narrow Danish
palstave, which was found in a hill in Jutland fastened to its handle
by three rings of leather. This handle was straight, but unlike that
from Store Hedinage, which was an ell and a quarter long, was not more
than about 8 inches in length. In some other instances, he says, the
blade has been fastened to the handle by nails or rivets.
I have already mentioned that some of the socketed celts of iron
belonging to the early Iron Age of Denmark have been found mounted
as chisels. A good example of one thus hafted has been figured by
Engelhardt.[566] The part of the handle which goes into the socket
is tapered to fit it. Above this the handle expands with a shoulder
projecting somewhat beyond the outside of the celt. It continues of
this size for about 1½ inches, and is then again reduced to the same
size as the mouth of the celt. The whole of the handle beyond the metal
is about 4 inches in length.
Having said thus much with regard to the early iron chisels, it will,
however, now be well to proceed to the consideration of those formed of
bronze, and of the other bronze tools found in this country.