In some of the Wiltshire barrows more perfectly preserved handles have been found. One of these, copied from Hoare’s “Ancient Wiltshire,”[684] is shown in Fig. 227. It was found in the King barrow with what was probably a male skeleton buried in the hollowed trunk of an elm tree. With it was a curious urn of burnt clay and two bronze daggers, one near the breast and the other near the thigh. The handle is described as being of ivory, but I think Dr. Thurnam was right in regarding it as of bone. The awl in this instance is of the third type, having a well-marked collar round it. Another of the same character, but retaining only a small part of the haft, so that the shoulder is better shown, was found with burnt bones in an urn deposited in a barrow near Stonehenge.[685] No mention is made as to the nature of the material of which the haft was formed. In the case of an awl of the first type, engraved by Dr. Thurnam, and here reproduced as Fig. 228, the handle is of wood, but the kind of wood is not mentioned. [Illustration: Fig. 228. Wiltshire. ½] One or two bronze or brass awls with square shoulders are in the Museum of the Royal Irish Academy.[686] Several awls with their original wooden handles have been found in the Lake-dwellings of Savoy,[687] and others in hafts of stag’s-horn in the Swiss Lake-dwellings. Whether the twisted pins from the Wiltshire barrows are of the nature of gimlets, as suggested by Dr. Thurnam, is a difficult question. I shall, however, prefer to treat of them as personal ornaments rather than as tools. It is possible that they may to some extent have combined the two functions. As to the instruments which I have been describing being piercing tools or awls, there seems to be little doubt; and Mr. Bateman can hardly have been far wrong in regarding them as intended to pierce skins or leather. Though not curved like the cobbler’s awl of the present day, they are probably early members of the same family. In Scandinavia these instruments are of frequent occurrence, sometimes being provided with ornamental handles also made of bronze.[688] They are in that part of Europe often found in company with tweezers and small knives of bronze, and all were probably used together in sewing, the hole being bored by the awl and the thread drawn through by the tweezers and, when necessary, cut with the knife. Possibly the use of bristles as substitutes for needles dates back to very early times. In one instance at least tweezers have been found in Britain in company with objects apparently belonging to the Bronze Age, though no doubt to a very late part of it. Those represented in Fig. 229 were discovered near Llangwyllog,[689] Anglesea, together with a two-edged razor, a bracelet, buttons, rings, &c., which are now in the British Museum.