In the same barrow at Rudstone,[685] near Bridlington, as that in which the block of pyrites and flint scraper, subsequently to be described (Fig. 223), were found, but with a different interment, Canon Greenwell discovered the beautifully formed axe-hammer shown in Fig. 127. It is of very close-grained, slightly micaceous grit, and presents the peculiarity of having the rounded faces slightly chamfered all round the flat sides. The edge is carefully rounded, and the broad end somewhat flattened. It lay behind the shoulders of the skeleton of an old man lying on his left side, with his right hand on his head, and his left to his face. Before the face, was a bronze knife 4 inches long, with a single rivet to fasten it to its handle, and close to the axe-hammer lay a pointed flint flake re-chipped on both faces. In a barrow at Sledmere[686] with burnt bones lay a weapon of this kind battered at the blunt end. An axe-head (6 1∕4 inches), with convex faces, rounded at the butt, and with an oval shaft-hole, was dredged from the Thames at London,[687] and is now in the British Museum. It seems almost indisputable that these elegantly formed axe-heads belong to the period when bronze was in use, and from their occurrence in the graves they appear to have formed part of the equipment of warriors. |196| The careful manner in which their edges are blunted shows that they cannot have been intended for cutting tools, but that they must have been weapons of war. A blow from a battle-axe with a blunted edge would be just as fatal as if the edge had been sharp and trenchant, while the risk of accidental injury to the scantily-clothed warrior who carried the axe was next to none when the edge of the weapon was thus blunted. The practice of removing the edge by grinding was, no doubt, introduced in consequence of some painful experience. [Illustration: Fig. 128.—Borrowash. 1∕2] Fig. 128 is of still more ornamental character, having a beaded moulding towards each edge of the faces and following the curvature of the sides. The drawing is taken from a cast in the Museum of the Society of Antiquaries, presented by Sir W. Tite. M.P.[688] The original is said to have been found near Whitby. A fine axe-head “of red granite, ornamented with raised mouldings,” was, however, found with |197| human bones near Borrowash, Derbyshire, in 1841,[689] and is in the Bateman Collection, now at Sheffield. To judge from the woodcut in the Catalogue, the cast must have been taken from this specimen. “A very elegant axe-head, 5 inches long, of reddish basalt, beautifully wrought, with a slight moulding round the angles, and a perforation for the shaft,” is described by Mr. Bateman[690] as having been found on a barrow eleven miles E. of Pickering, Yorkshire.