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
A small specimen (5¼ inches) from Fairholme, Lockerbie, Dumfriesshire,
is in the British Museum.
A small example of this type (about 3½ inches) is in the collection
formed by Sir R. Colt Hoare at Stourhead, and now at Devizes, and in
the same case with the dagger blades. It has been figured by the late
Dr. Thurnam[1243] in his valuable memoir in the _Archæologia_, and is
thought by him to have been found in a grave with burnt bones in one
of the Wilsford barrows near Stonehenge.
There is a diminutive variety of this class of weapon with two loops,
in which the blade is extremely narrow, like that from Lakenheath
shown in Fig. 395. I have another, 4⅞ inches, with even a smaller and
shorter blade, from Cumberland.
Canon Greenwell has one only 3 inches long, found near Nottingham. It
has three parallel grooves round the socket mouth. One, 4¼ inches,
from Ashdown, Berks, is in the British Museum.
A fragment of another of very small dimensions was found at Farley
Heath, Surrey, and is now in the British Museum.
A lance-head with a more leaf-shaped blade (6¼ inches) is said to have
been found in a tumulus at Craigton, near Kinross.[1244]
An Irish example, 2⅜ inches long, and comparatively broad in
proportion to its length, has been regarded as an arrow-head. It was
found at Clonmel, Co. Tipperary.[1245] It has probably been broken and
repointed. An example much like Fig. 395 is engraved by Wilde as his
Fig. 379.
In some cases there is a ridge running along the whole or a great
part of the midrib on the blade so as to make the section near the
point almost cruciform. An example of this kind from the neighbourhood
of Cambridge is shown in Fig. 396. In this case the side loops are
unusually near the mouth of the socket, the cavity of which extends
about half-way along the blade. Canon Greenwell has an example of this
type (6½ inches), from Langton, Lincolnshire, with a longer socket,
and the loops about half-way along it.
[Illustration: Fig. 395. Lakenheath. ½]
[Illustration: Fig. 396. Near Cambridge. ½]
[Illustration: Fig. 397. North of Ireland. ½]
This ribbing along the midrib is of frequent occurrence on Irish
spear-heads, and was probably intended to strengthen as well as to
decorate the blade. The projecting ribs on the flat part of the blade
were also probably added for the same purpose. Fig. 397 shows a
spear-head with these ridges, found in the North of Ireland.
[Illustration: Fig. 398.—Ireland. ½]
[Illustration: Fig. 399.—Thames. ½]
[Illustration: Fig. 400.—Ireland. ½]
The blade is carried down as a slight projection along the socket
until it meets the side loops, the outer faces of which are expanded
into lozenges.
I have a shorter example (5½ inches) from Old Kilpatrick,
Dumbartonshire, Scotland; one from Termon, Co. Tyrone, is engraved in
the _Archæological Journal_.[1246]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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