The Ancient Bronze Implements, Weapons, and Ornaments, of Great Britain and Ireland.Evans, John
History
The Ancient Bronze Implements, Weapons, and Ornaments, of Great Britain and Ireland.
Evans, John
Bronze age -- Great Britain; Bronze age -- Ireland; Great Britain -- Antiquities
[Illustration: Fig. 280.—Helperthorpe. ½]
From Yorkshire Mr. Bateman describes one (4½ inches) with a
crescent-shaped mark showing the form of the handle, found with an
extended skeleton at Cawthorn.[831] Another (6 or 7 inches), from
a barrow near Pickering,[832] had a V-shaped notch in the handle,
to which had been attached a small bone pommel. One from Bishop
Wilton,[833] belonging to Mr. Mortimer, has been engraved by Dr.
Thurnam.
The mention of this pommel suggests that it is time to consider the
manner in which these blades were hafted, as to which the discoveries
of Sir Richard Colt Hoare in the Wiltshire barrows, and of Canon
Greenwell in those of Yorkshire, leave no doubt. The hafts appear in
nearly all cases to have consisted of ox-horn, bone, or wood, sometimes
in a single piece with a notch for receiving the blade, and sometimes
formed of a pair of similar pieces riveted together, one on each side
of the blade. The lower end of the haft was often inserted in a hollow
pommel usually of bone.
[Illustration: Fig. 281.—Helperthorpe. ½]
The nature of the arrangement of the haft when formed of two pieces
will be readily understood on reference to Fig. 280, in which the
presumed outline of the original ox-horn haft is shown by dotted lines,
and the rivets by which the two plates of horn were bound together are
in the position they originally occupied along the centre of the haft.
The outline of the upper part of this handle, where it was secured
by two rivets to the blade, is still visible, and is shown by darker
shading. The pommel at the lower end was attached by pins of horn or
of wood, and not by metal rivets. A separate view and section of the
pommel is shown in Fig. 281. The original was found by Canon Greenwell,
F.R.S., with a contracted interment in a barrow at Helperthorpe,[834]
Yorkshire, at the opening of which I was present. As will be seen,
the blade has all the appearance of having been much worn by use and
repeated whetting.
Bone pommels of the same kind have been frequently met with in
barrows, but their purpose was not known to some of the earlier
explorers. One from a barrow on Brassington Moor[835] is described by
Mr. Bateman as a bone stud perforated with six holes, and was thought
to have been intended for being sown on to some article of dress or
ornament. Another was found in a barrow at Narrowdale Hill,[836] near
Alstonefield, and is also described as a bone button. In both these
instances the dagger itself seems to have entirely perished.
In a barrow subsequently opened by Mr. Ruddock near Pickering,[837]
the butt end of a dagger handle was recognised in one of these
objects. In this instance the pommel was made of three pieces of bone
fastened together by two bronze rivets, and having two holes for the
pegs by which it was secured to the handle.
[Illustration: Fig. 282.—Garton.]
[Illustration: Fig. 283.—Wilmslow.]
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