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
The spear-heads of the second of the classes into which they are here
divided are those with loops at the side of the projecting socket.
These loops are usually more elongated than those on socketed celts
and palstaves, though they probably served a similar purpose, that of
securing the metallic head to the wooden handle. The metal of which
the loops are formed has frequently been flattened by hammering, so as
to reduce the projection of the loops beyond the socket; the flattened
part is often wrought into a lozenge form.
The strings which passed through these loops were probably secured to
some stop or collar on the shaft, and may have been arranged in some
chevron-like pattern with which these lozenges coincided. There are
usually no rivet-holes in the spear-heads of this class.
A specimen exhibiting these lozenges, and with the blade of nearly
the same form as those of the spear-heads of the first class, is
shown in Fig. 394. The upper part of the midrib containing the socket
is ridged, so that the section near the point is almost square. The
socket is slightly fluted round the mouth. The original was found at
Thetford, Suffolk.
A spear-head of the same type, but with only a single large
loop, found in Glen Kenns, Galloway, is engraved in the
_Archæologia_,[1235] but it seems probable that the figure is somewhat
inaccurate.
Another (5½ inches) with two loops was found at Hangleton Down,
Sussex.[1236] Another (5¼ inches), rather more elongated than Fig.
394, was found at Trefeglwys, Montgomeryshire.[1237] Another from
Shirewood Forest is engraved in the Archæologia.[1238] It has a
slightly ogival outline on each side, a peculiarity I have noticed in
other specimens. An example given in the same plate seems to have lost
the flat part of the blade.
I have one (6¼ inches) from Fyfield, near Abingdon.
Mr. M. Fisher has a specimen from the Fens at Ely (5⅜ inches), with
the midrib ridged like Fig. 396.
One from Hagbourn Hill, near Chiltern, Berks,[1239] is reported to
have been found with a socketed celt, a pin like Fig. 458, and another
like Fig. 453, together with a bronze bridle-bit, and some portions
of buckles like those of the late Celtic Period. These are now in the
British Museum. A few coins of gold and silver are said to have been
found at the same time.
One (6 inches) was found at Chartham, near Canterbury.[1240]
One, 5 inches long, from the Thames, is in the British Museum. It has
a small ridge or bead along the mid-feather. The loops have a diamond
engraved or punched upon them.
In one from Beckhampton, Wilts[1241] (4¾ inches), the side loops do
not appear to be flattened.
The form is of not unfrequent occurrence in Ireland, though perhaps
that with the raised ribs on the blade, like Fig. 397, is more common.
In one instance (13½ inches)[1242] the loops upon the socket are not
opposite each other, though, as usual, in the same plane as the blade.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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