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
I now proceed to consider some of the flat celts ornamented with
patterns probably produced by punches, as will subsequently be
mentioned. The first which I adduce was found with an interment, and
the ornamentation is so slight that it is a question whether the celt
ought not to rank among those of the plain kind.
The late Mr. Thomas Bateman in 1845 found what he described as “a fine
bronze celt of novel form” and “of elegant outline” near the head of a
contracted skeleton in a barrow called Moot Low,[179] about half-way
between Alsop Moor and Dovedale, Derbyshire. “It was placed in a
line with the body, with its edge upwards.” By the kindness of Mr.
Llewellynn Jewitt, F.S.A.,[180] I am enabled to give a figure of this
instrument in Fig. 3. As will be seen, it has slight flanges along
the sides, and the upper part is ornamented with short vertical lines
punched in.
That shown in Fig. 4 was found in Yorkshire, and is now in the
British Museum. The patina upon it has been somewhat injured, but
the ornamentation upon the faces is in places very well preserved. It
consists of numerous parallel lines, each made up of short diagonal
indentations in the metal, and together forming the pattern which will
be better understood from the figure than from any description. The
sides are ornamented by having two low pyramidal bosses drawn out upon
them, leaving a long concave hexagonal space in the middle between
them. This celt has already been figured, but on a much smaller scale,
in the “Horæ Ferales.”[181]
[Illustration: Fig. 4.—Yorkshire. ½]
This style of ornamentation on the sides is more common on Irish than
on English or Scottish celts. One, however, 5½ inches long, of the
doubly tapering form with lunate edge, having the central portion of
the blade ornamented with a series of lines in a chevron pattern, and
having the sides worked into three facets of a pointed oval form,
was found at Whittington,[182] Gloucestershire, and was presented
by Mr. W. L. Lawrence, F.S.A., to the Society of Antiquaries. The
ornamentation is much like that on Fig. 7, but between the ornamented
portion of the blade and the edge there is a curved hollow facet, the
ridge below which runs nearly parallel with the edge.
[Illustration: Fig. 5.—Weymouth. ½]
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