The Ancient Stone Implements, Weapons and Ornaments, of Great Britain: Second Edition, RevisedEvans, John
History
The Ancient Stone Implements, Weapons and Ornaments, of Great Britain: Second Edition, Revised
Evans, John
Great Britain -- Antiquities; Stone age -- Great Britain
The type with the oval section is not, however, confined to Ireland. In
the Greenwell Collection is a beautiful hammer of this class, which is
represented in Fig. 151. It is made of a veined quartzose gneiss, and
was found on Heslerton Wold, Yorkshire. As will be seen, it is somewhat
oval in section. The sides are straight, but the faces from which the
hole is bored are somewhat hollow. I have a specimen of the same form,
but made of greenstone (3 inches), from the neighbourhood of Sutton
Coldfield,[787] Warwickshire.
A barrel-shaped hammer (3 3∕4 inches) was found on the hill of
Ashogall,[788] Turriff, Aberdeenshire, and a rude triangular hammer on
the Gallow Hill of Turriff.
[Illustration: Fig. 151.—Heslerton Wold. 1∕2]
A smaller hammer-head, curiously like those from Farney and Tullamore,
both in form and material, was found with a small “food vessel”
accompanying an interment near Doune,[789] Perthshire. It is 2 5∕8
inches long, with a parallel shaft-hole 5∕8 inch in diameter.
Another, of small-grained black porphyry, neatly polished, and about
3 1∕4 inches long, similar in outline to Fig. 150, but of oval section,
and little more than an inch in thickness, was dredged up in the Tidal
Basin, at Montrose, and is preserved in the local museum.
A cylindrical hammer of grey granite (2 3∕4 inches) only partially
bored from both faces, was found in the parish of Glammis,[790]
Forfarshire. Mr. J. W. Cursiter, of Kirkwall, has a beautiful specimen
formed of striped gneiss (3 1∕4 inches) with well-rounded ends, and the
sides much curved inwards. It was found at Whiteness, Shetland. Another
of his hammers (2 3∕4 inches) with a parallel hole (7∕8 inch) has the
sides straight and is of oval section. It is of beautifully mottled
gneiss.
Another variety, allied to the last, has an egg-shaped instead of a
quasi-conical form; the shaft-hole being towards the small end of the
egg. The specimen here engraved, Fig. 152, is apparently of serpentine,
and was found at Hallgaard Farm, near Birdoswald, Cumberland. It is in
the Greenwell Collection.
I have a smaller but nearly similar specimen in greenstone, from |225|
the neighbourhood of Flamborough, Yorkshire. The hole in this is more
bell-mouthed than in the other specimen, and a little nearer the centre
of the stone.
One of nearly similar form, but rather flatter on one face,
3 1∕4 inches long, found in Newport, Lincoln, is engraved in the
_Archæological Journal_.[791]
Another in size and shape, much like Fig. 152, was dug up at
Llanrhaiadr-yn-Mochnant, Montgomeryshire.[792] Another in the British
Museum came from the neighbourhood of Keswick.
An egg-shaped hammer, 3 inches long, of mica schist, and found in
the Isle of Arran,[793] is in the National Museum at Edinburgh. The
shaft-hole is in the centre.
[Illustration: Fig. 152.—Birdoswald. 1∕2]
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