Dr. Munro is less than kind to the forger in the matter of the "weapons"
found at Dunbuie and Dumbuck. They are "absolutely worthless as real
weapons," he says, with perfect truth, for they are made of slate or
shale, _not_ of hard stony slate, which many races used to employ for
lack of better material. {112a}
{ Fig. 16: p113a.jpg}
The forger was obviously not thinking of dumping down _serviceable_ sham
weapons. He could easily have bought as many genuine flint celts and
arrow-heads and knives as he needed, had his aim been to prove his sites
to be neolithic. So I argued long ago, in a newspaper letter. Dr. Munro
replies among other things, that "nothing could be easier than to detect
modern imitations of Neolithic relics." {112b} I said not a word about
"modern imitations." I said that a forger, anxious to fake a Neolithic
site, "would, of course, drop in a few Neolithic arrow-heads, 'celts' and
so forth," meaning genuine objects, very easily to be procured for money.
{ Figs. 17, 18: p113b.jpg}
As the forger did not adopt a device so easy, so obvious, and so
difficult of detection, (if he purchased Scottish flint implements) his
aim was not to fake a Neolithic site. He put in, not well-known genuine
Neolithic things, but things of a character with which some of his
critics were not familiar, yet which have analogues elsewhere.
Why did he do that?
As to the blunt decorated slate weapons, the forger did not mean, I
think, to pass off these as practicable arms of the Neolithic period.
These he could easily have bought from the dealers. What he intended to
dump down were not practical weapons, but, in one case at least, _armes
d'apparat_, as French archaeologists call them, weapons of show or
ceremony.
The strange "vandyked" crozier-like stone objects of schist or shale from
Portugal were possibly _armes d'apparat_, or heads of staves of dignity.
There is a sample in the American room at the British Museum,
uninscribed. I submit that the three very curious and artistic stone axe-
heads, figured by M. Cartailhac, {114} representing, one an uncouth
animal; another, a hooded human head, the third an extremely pretty girl,
could never have been used for practical purposes, but were _armes
d'apparat_. Perhaps such stone _armes d'apparat_, or magical or sacred
arms, were not unknown, as survivals, in Scotland in the Iron Age. A
"celt" or stone axe-head of this kind, ornamented with a pattern of inter-
crossing lines, is figured and described by the Rev. Mr. Mackenzie
(Kenmore) in the _Proceedings_ of the Scottish Society of Antiquaries
(1900-1901, p. 310 _et seq._). This axe-head, found near a cairn at
Balnahannait, is of five inches long by two and a quarter broad. It is
of "soft micaceous stone." The owners must have been acquainted with the
use of the metals, Mr. Mackenzie thinks, for the stone exhibits
"interlaced work of a late variety of this ornamentation." Mr. Mackenzie
suggests that the ornament was perhaps added "after the axe had obtained
some kind of venerated or symbolical character." This implies that a
metal-working people, finding a stone axe, were puzzled by it, venerated
it, and decorated it in their late style of ornament.
In that case, who, in earlier times, made an useless axe-head of soft
micaceous stone, and why? It could be of no practical service. On the
other hand, people who had the metals might fashion a soft stone into an
_arme d'apparat_. "It cannot have been intended for ordinary use," "the
axe may have been a sacred or ceremonial one," says Mr. Mackenzie, and he
makes the same conjecture as to another Scottish stone axe-head. {115}
Here, then, if Mr. Mackenzie be right, we have a soft stone axe-head,
decorated with "later ornament," the property of a people who knew the
metals, and regarded the object as "a sacred or ceremonial one," _enfin_,
as an _arme d'apparat_.
Dr. Munro doubtless knows all that is known about _armes d'apparat_, but
he unkindly forgets to credit the forger with the same amount of easily
accessible information, when the forger dumps down a decorated slate
spear-head, eleven inches long.
Believe me, this forger was no fool: he knew what he was about, and he
must have laughed when critics said that his slate spear-heads would be
useless. He expected the learned to guess what he was forging; not
practicable weapons, but _armes d'apparat_; survivals of a ceremonial
kind, like Mr. Mackenzie's decorated axe-head of soft stone.
_That_, I think, was our forger's little game; for even if he thought no
more than Dr. Munro seems to do of the theory of "survivals," he knew
that the theory is fashionable. "Nothing like these spear-heads . . .
has hitherto been found in Scotland, so that they cannot be survivals
from a previous state of things in our country," says Dr. Munro. {116a}
The argument implies that there is nothing in the soil of our country of
a nature still undiscovered. This is a large assumption, especially if
Mr. Mackenzie be right about the sacred ceremonial decorated axe-head of
soft stone. The forger, however, knew that elsewhere, if not in
Scotland, there exist useless _armes d'apparat_, and he obviously meant
to fake a few samples. He was misunderstood. I knew what he was doing,
for it seems that "Mr. Lang . . . suggested that the spear-heads were not
meant to be used as weapons, but as 'sacred things.'" {116b} I knew
little; but I did know the sacred boomerang-shaped decorated Arunta
churinga, and later looked up other _armes d'apparat_. {116c}
Apparently I must have "coached" the forger, and told him what kinds of
things to fake. But I protest solemnly that I am innocent! He got up
the subject for himself, and knew more than many of his critics. I had
no more to do with the forger than M. Salomon Reinach had to do with
faking the golden "tiara of Saitaphernes," bought by the Louvre for 8000
pounds. M. Reinack denies the suave suggestion that _he_ was at the
bottom of this imposture. {117a} I also am innocent of instructing the
Clyde forger. He read books, English, French, German, American, Italian,
Portuguese, and Spanish.
From the _Bulletino di Palaetnologia Italiana_, vol. xi. p. 33, 1885,
plate iv., and from Professor Pigorini's article there, he prigged the
idea of a huge stone weapon, of no use, found in a grotto near Verona.
{117b} This object is of flint, shaped like a flint arrow-head; is ten
inches and a half in length, and "weighs over 3.5 pounds." "Pigorini
conjectured that it had some religious signification."
Inspired by this arrow-head of Gargantua, the Clyde forger came in with a
still longer decorated slate spear-head, weighing I know not how much. It
is here photographed (figs. 17, 18). Compare the decoration of three
parallel horizontal lines with that on the broken Portuguese perforated
stone (figs. 9, 10). Or did the Veronese forger come to Clyde, and carry
on the business at Dumbuck? The man has read widely. Sometimes,
however, he may have resorted to sources which, though excellent, are
accessible and cheap, like Mr. Haddon's _Evolution in Art_. Here (pp.
79, 80) the faker could learn all that he needed to know about _armes
d'apparat_ in the form of stone axe-heads, "unwieldy and probably quite
useless objects" found by Mr. Haddon in the chain of isles south-east of
New Guinea. Mr. Romilly and Dr. Wyatt Gill attest the existence of
similar axes of ceremony. "They are not intended for cleaving timber."
We see "the metamorphosis of a practical object into an unpractical one."
{118}
The forger thus had sources for his great decorated slate spear-head; the
smaller specimens may be sketches for that colossal work.