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 type of Fig. 54 has also been found. I have a specimen (6 inches)
from Ballinamallard, near Enniskillen.
Palstaves without a stop-ridge, and with broad lozenge-shaped wings,
like Fig. 56, are of rare occurrence. One of nearly the same type, but
having a low projecting ridge between the wings, is shown in Fig. 93.
[Illustration: Fig. 93.—Ireland. ½]
[Illustration: Fig. 94.—Ireland. ½]
I have another from Armoy, Co. Antrim (6 inches), with a still
slighter transverse ridge, which forms the upper boundary to a
shield-shaped projection on the blade, on which is a central vertical
ridge with two others on each side less definitely marked. The base of
the shield is pointed.
A not uncommon type has a very high stop-ridge coming up to the level
of the side wings, the blade above the stop-ridge being somewhat
thinner than it is below. An example is shown in Fig. 94.
I have another from County Antrim, in which the lower part of the
blade has a slight median vertical ridge.
In a palstave in the Museum of the Royal Irish Academy,[372] with
elliptical wings, a long fusiform boss has been cast in the centre of
the blade.
[Illustration: Fig. 95.—Ireland. ½]
In another instrument in the same collection the whole blade is
thickened out so as to form the stop-ridge, as will be seen in Fig. 95.
In other cases the ridge of the wings is continued as a moulding on
the face of the blade, so as to enclose a space below the stop-ridge.
From the base of this there sometimes proceeds a vertical rib, as seen
in Fig. 96.
Inverted chevrons by way of ornament below the stop-ridge are not
uncommon, sometimes with a vertical rib in addition.
Such compartments are often seen on the winged celts, with only
a slight stop-ridge. Fig. 97 shows an example from Lanesborough,
Co. Longford, now in the collection of Canon Greenwell, F.R.S. The
compartment is ornamented with vertical punch marks. The outside of
the wings is faceted after a fashion not unusual in Ireland, but there
is here a slight shoulder at the base of the central facet which may
have assisted in securing the blade to the handle. On a specimen at
Dublin there are on the otherwise flat sides elevated transverse
ridges, which, as Sir W. Wilde[373] has pointed out, may have served
“to keep the tying in its place.”
[Illustration: Fig. 96.—North of Ireland. ½]
[Illustration: Fig. 97.—Lanesborough. ½]
[Illustration: Fig. 98.—Trillick. ½]
The sides of other specimens of much the same type are otherwise
fashioned and ornamented. In Fig. 98 is shown a celt from Trillick,
Co. Tyrone, on the sides of which a kind of fern-leaf pattern has been
hammered, or rather punched, not unlike the carving on one of the
stones in the great chambered tumulus of New Grange. The shield plate
has two vertical hollows worked on it.
The side of a celt ornamented in the same manner is engraved by
Wilde.[374]
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