TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:

—Obvious print and punctuation errors were corrected.

—Huge tables at pages 460 to 463 have been rendered as illustration.

—The transcriber of this project created the book cover image using the front cover of the original book. The image is placed in the public domain.

THE ANCIENT

BRONZE IMPLEMENTS,

WEAPONS, AND ORNAMENTS,

OF

GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND.

THE ANCIENT
BRONZE IMPLEMENTS,
WEAPONS, AND ORNAMENTS,
OF
GREAT BRITAIN
AND
IRELAND.

BY
JOHN EVANS, D.C.L., LL.D., F.R.S.,
F.S.A., F.G.S., Pres. Num. Soc., &c.

LONDON:
LONGMANS, GREEN, & CO.
1881.

(All rights reserved.)

LONDON
PRINTED BY VIRTUE AND CO., LIMITED
CITY ROAD.

PREFACE.

The work which is now presented to the public has unfortunately been many years in progress, as owing to various occupations, both private and public, the leisure at my command has been but small, and it has been only from time to time, often at long intervals, that I have been able to devote a few hours to its advancement. During this slow progress the literature of the subject, especially on the Continent, has increased in an unprecedentedly rapid manner, and I have had great difficulty in at all keeping pace with it.

I have, however, done my best, both by reading and travel, to keep myself acquainted with the discoveries that were being made and the theories that were being broached with regard to bronze antiquities, whether abroad or at home, and I hope that so far as facts are concerned, and so far as relates to the present state of information on the subject, I shall not be found materially wanting.

Of course in a work which treats more especially of the bronze antiquities of the British Islands, I have not felt bound to enlarge more than was necessary for the sake of comparison on the corresponding antiquities of other countries. I have, however, in all cases pointed out such analogies in form and character as seemed to me of importance as possibly helping to throw light on the source whence our British bronze civilisation was derived.

It may by some be thought that a vast amount of useless trouble has been bestowed in figuring and describing so many varieties of what were after all in most cases the ordinary tools of the artificer, or the common arms of the warrior or huntsman, which differed from each other only in apparently unimportant particulars. But as in biological studies minute anatomy often affords the most trustworthy evidence as to the descent of any given organism from some earlier form of life, so these minor details in the form and character of ordinary implements, which to the cursory observer appear devoid of meaning, may, to a skilful archæologist, afford valuable clues by which the march of the bronze civilisation over Europe may be traced to its original starting-place.

I am far from saying that this has as yet been satisfactorily accomplished, and to my mind it will only be by accumulating a far larger mass of facts than we at present possess that comparative archæology will be able to triumph over the difficulties with which its path is still beset.

Much is, however, being done, and I trust that so far as the British Isles are concerned, the facts which I have here collected and the figures which I have caused to be engraved will at all events form a solid foundation on which others may be able to build.

So long ago as 1876 I was able to present to the foreign archæologists assembled at Buda-Pest for the International Congress of Prehistoric Archæology and Anthropology, a short abstract of this work in the shape of my Petit Album de l’âge du Bronze de la Grande Bretagne, which I have reason to believe has been found of some service. At that time my friend the late Sir William Wilde was still alive, and as the bronze antiquities of Ireland appeared to be especially under his charge, I had not regarded them as falling within the scope of my book. After his lamented death there was, however, no possibility of interfering with his labours, by my including the bronze antiquities of the sister country with those of England, Wales, and Scotland in the present work, and I accordingly enlarged my original plan.

In carrying out my undertaking I have followed the same method as in my work on the “Ancient Stone Implements, &c., of Great Britain;” and it will be found that what I may term the dictionary and index of bronze antiquities is printed in smaller type than the more general descriptive and historical part of the book. I have in fact offered those who take an ordinary interest in archæological inquiry without wishing to be burdened with minute details a broad hint as to what they may advantageously skip. To the specialist and the local antiquary the portion printed in smaller type will be found of use, if only as giving references to other works in which the more detailed accounts of local discoveries are given. These references, thanks to members of my own family, have been carefully checked, and the accuracy of all the original figures for this work, engraved for me with conscientious care by Mr. Swain, of Bouverie Street, may, I think, be relied on.

To the councils of several of our learned societies, and especially to those of the Societies of Antiquaries of London and Edinburgh, the Royal Irish Academy, the Royal Archæological Institute, and the Royal Historical and Archæological Association of Ireland, I am much indebted for the loan of woodcuts and for other assistance. I have also to thank the trustees and curators of many local museums, as well as the owners of various private collections, for allowing me to figure specimens, and for valuable information supplied.

My warmest thanks are, however, due to Mr. Augustus W. Franks, F.R.S., and Canon Greenwell, F.R.S., not only for assistance in the matter of illustrations, but for most kindly undertaking the task of reading my proofs. I must also thank Mr. Joseph Anderson, the accomplished keeper of the Antiquarian Museum at Edinburgh, and Mr. Robert Day, F.S.A., of Cork, for having revised those portions of the work which relate to Scotland and Ireland.

The Index has been carefully compiled by my sister, Mrs. Hubbard. As was the case with those of my “Ancient Stone Implements,” and “Ancient British Coins,” it is divided into two parts; the one referring generally to the subject matter of the book, and the other purely topographical. The advantages of such a division in a book of this character are obvious.

In conclusion, I venture to prefer the request that any discoveries of new types of instruments or of deposits of bronze antiquities may be communicated to me.

John Evans.

Nash Mills, Hemel Hempsted,

March, 1881.

CONTENTS.

WOODCUT ILLUSTRATIONS.

The references are to the original sources of such cuts as have not been engraved expressly for this book.

ERRATA.

CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTORY.

Having already in a former work attempted the arrangement and description of the Ancient Stone Implements and Ornaments of Great Britain, I am induced to undertake a similar task in connection with those Bronze Antiquities which belong to the period when Stone was gradually falling into disuse for cutting purposes, and Iron was either practically unknown in this country, or had been but partially adopted for tools and weapons.

The duration and chronological position of this bronze-using period will have to be discussed hereafter, but I must at the outset reiterate what I said some eight or ten years ago, that in this county, at all events, it is impossible to fix any hard and fast limits for the close of the Stone Period, or for the beginning or end of the Bronze Period, or for the commencement of that of Iron. Though the succession of these three stages of civilisation may here be regarded as certain, the transition from one to the other in a country of such an extent as Britain—occupied, moreover, as it probably was, by several tribes of different descent, manners, and customs—must have required a long course of years to become general; and even in any particular district the change cannot have been sudden.

There must of necessity have been a time when in each district the new phase of civilisation was being introduced, and the old conditions had not been entirely changed. So that, as I have elsewhere pointed out, the three stages of progress represented by the Stone, Bronze, and Iron Periods, like the three principal colours of the rainbow, overlap, intermingle, and shade off the one into the other, though their succession, so far as Britain and Western Europe are concerned, appears to be equally well defined with that of the prismatic colours.

In thus speaking of a bronze-using period I by no means wish to exclude the possible use of copper unalloyed with tin. There is indeed every ground for believing that in some parts of the world the use of native copper must have continued for a lengthened period before it was discovered that the addition of a small proportion of tin not only rendered it more readily fusible, but added to its elasticity and hardness, and thus made it more serviceable for tools and weapons. Even after the advantages of the alloy over the purer metal were known, the local scarcity of tin may at times have caused so small a quantity of that metal to be employed, that the resulting mixture can hardly be regarded as bronze; or at times this dearth may have necessitated the use of copper alone, either native or as smelted from the ore.

Of this Copper Age, however, there are in Europe but extremely feeble traces, if indeed any can be said to exist. It appears not unlikely that the views which are held by many archæologists as to the Asiatic origin of bronze may prove to be well founded, and that when the use of copper was introduced into Europe, the discovery had already long been made that it was more serviceable when alloyed with tin than when pure. In connection with this it may be observed that the most important discovery of instruments of copper as yet recorded in the Old World is that which was made at Gungeria in Central India.[1] They consisted of flat celts of what has been regarded as the most primitive type; but with them were found some ornaments of silver, a circumstance which seems to militate against their extreme antiquity, as the production of silver involves a considerable amount of metallurgical skill, and probably an acquaintance with lead and other metals. However this may be, there are reasons for supposing that if a Copper Age existed in the Old World its home was in Asia or the most eastern part of Europe, and not in any western country.

The most instructive instance of a Copper Age, as distinct from one of Bronze, is that afforded by certain districts of North America, in which we find good evidence of a period when, in addition to stone as a material from which tools and weapons were made, copper also was employed, and used in its pure native condition without the addition of any alloy.

The State of Wisconsin[2] alone has furnished upwards of a hundred axes, spear-heads, and knives formed of copper; and, to judge from some extracts from the writings of the early travellers given by the Rev. E. F. Slafter,[3] that part of America would seem to have entered on its Copper Age long before it was first brought into contact with European civilisation, towards the middle of the sixteenth century. It has been thought by several American antiquaries that some at least of these tools and weapons were produced by the process of casting, though the preponderance of opinion seems to be in favour of all of them being shaped by the hammer and not cast. Among others I may mention my friend the Hon. Colonel C. C. Jones, who has examined this question for me, and has been unable to discover any instance of one of these copper tools or weapons having been indisputably cast.

That they were originally wrought, and not cast, is à priori in the highest degree probable. On some parts of the shores of Lake Superior native copper occurs in great abundance, and would no doubt attract the attention of the early occupants of the country. Accustomed to the use of stone, they would at first regard the metal as merely a stone of peculiarly heavy nature, and on attempting to chip it or work it into shape would at once discover that it yielded to a blow instead of breaking, and that in fact it was a malleable stone. Of this ductile property the North American savage availed himself largely, and was able to produce spear-heads with sockets adapted for the reception of their shafts by merely hammering out the base of the spear-head and turning it over to form the socket, in the same manner as is so often employed in the making of iron tools. But though the great majority of the instruments hitherto found, if not all, have been hammered and not cast, it would appear that the process of melting copper was not entirely unknown. Squier and Davis have observed,[4] “that the metal appears to have been worked in all cases in a cold state. This is somewhat remarkable, as the fires upon the altars were sufficiently strong in some instances to melt down the copper implements and ornaments deposited upon them, and the fact that the metal is fusible could hardly have escaped notice.” That it did not altogether escape observation is shown by the evidence of De Champlain,[5] the founder of the city of Quebec. In 1610 he was joining a party of Algonquins, one of whom met him on his barque, and after conversation “tira d’un sac une pièce de cuivre de la longueur d’un pied qu’il me donna, le quel estoit fort beau et bien franc, me donnant à entendre qu’il en avoit en quantité là ou il l’avoit pris, qui estoit sur le bort d’une rivière proche d’un grand lac et qu’ils le prenoient par morceaux, et le faisant fondre le mettoient en lames, et avec des pierres le rendoient uny.”

We have here, then, evidence of a Copper Age,[6] in comparatively modern times, during most of which period the process of fusing the metal was unknown. In course of time, however, this art was discovered, and had not European influences been brought to bear upon the country this discovery might, as in other parts of the world, have led to the knowledge of other fusible metals, and eventually to the art of manufacturing bronze—an alloy already known in Mexico and Peru.[7]

So far as regards the Old World there are some who have supposed that, owing to iron being a simple and not a compound metal like bronze, and owing to the readiness with which it may be produced in the metallic condition from some of its ores, iron must have been in use before copper. Without denying the abstract possibility of this having been the case in some part of our globe, I think it will be found that among the nations occupying the shores of the eastern half of the Mediterranean—a part of the world which may be regarded as the cradle of European civilisation—not only are all archæological discoveries in favour of the succession of iron to bronze, but even historical evidence supports their testimony.

In the Introductory Chapter of my book on Ancient Stone Implements I have already touched upon this question, on which, however, it will here be desirable farther to enlarge.

The light thrown upon the subכject by the Hebrew Scriptures is but small. There is, however, in them frequent mention of most of the metals now in ordinary use. But the word כְהֹשֶה, which in our version is translated brass—a compound of copper and zinc—would be more properly translated copper, as indeed it is in one instance, though there it would seem erroneously, when two vessels of fine copper, precious as gold, are mentioned.[8] In some passages, however, it would appear as if the word would be more correctly rendered bronze than copper, as, for instance, where Moses[9] is commanded to cast five sockets of brass for the pillars to carry the hangings at the door of the tabernacle, which could hardly have been done from a metal so difficult to cast as unalloyed copper. Indeed if tin were known, and there appears little doubt that the word בְדִיל represents that metal, its use as an alloy for copper can hardly have been unknown. It may, then, be regarded as an accepted fact that at the time when the earliest books of the Hebrew Scriptures were reduced to writing, gold,[10] silver, iron, tin, lead, and brass, or more probably bronze, were known. To what date this reduction to writing is to be assigned is a question into which it would be somewhat out of place here to enter. The results, however, of modern criticism tend to prove that it can hardly be so remote as the fourteenth century before our era.

In the Book of Job, as to the date of which also there is some diversity of opinion, we find evidence of a considerable acquaintance with the metals: “Surely there is a vein for the silver, and a place for gold where they fine it. Iron is taken out of the earth, and brass is molten out of the stone.”[11] Lead is also mentioned, but not tin.

Before quitting this part of the subject I ought perhaps to allude to the passage respecting Tubal-Cain,[12] the seventh in descent from Adam, who is mentioned as “an instructer of every artificer in brass and iron,” or a furbisher[13] of every cutting instrument in those metals. This must, however, be regarded as a tradition incorporated in the narrative at the time it was written, and probably with some accessory colouring in connection with the name which Gesenius has suggested may mean scoriarum faber, a maker of dross, and which others have connected with that of Vulcan. Sir Gardner Wilkinson[14] has remarked on this subject that whatever may have been the case in earlier times, “no direct mention is made of iron arms or tools till after the Exodus,” and that “some are even inclined to doubt the barzel (בִַֹרֲזֶל), of the Hebrews being really that metal,” iron.

Movers[15] has observed that in the whole Pentateuch iron is mentioned only thirteen times, while bronze appears no less than forty-four, which he considers to be in favour of the later introduction of iron; as also the fact that bronze, and not iron, was associated with gold and silver in the fittings for the Tabernacle.

For other passages in Scripture relative to the employment of brass or bronze, and iron, among the Jews, the reader may consult an excellent article by the Rev. John Hodgson in the first volume of the Archæologia Æliana (1816), “An Inquiry into the Era when Brass was used in purposes to which Iron is now applied.” From this paper I have largely borrowed in subsequent pages.

As to the succession of the two metals, bronze and iron, among the ancient Egyptians, there is a considerable diversity of opinion among those who have studied the subject. Sir Gardner Wilkinson,[16] judging mainly from pictorial representations, thinks that the Egyptians of an early Pharaonic age were acquainted with the use of iron, and accounts for the extreme rarity of actual examples by the rapid decomposition of the metal in the nitrous soil of Egypt. M. Chabas,[17] the author of a valuable and interesting work upon primitive history, mainly as exhibited by Egyptian monuments, believes that the people of Egypt were acquainted with the use of iron from the dawn of their historic period, and upwards of 3000 years b.c. made use of it for all the purposes to which we now apply it, and even prescribed its oxide as a medicinal preparation. M. Mariette,[18] on the contrary, whose personal explorations entitle his opinion to great weight, is of opinion that the early Egyptians never really made use of iron, and seems to think that from some mythological cause that metal was regarded as the bones of Typhon, and was the object of a certain repugnance. M. Chabas himself is, indeed, of opinion that iron was used with extreme reserve, and, so to speak, only in exceptional cases. This he considers to have been partly due to religious motives, and partly to the greater abundance of bronze, which the Egyptians well knew how to mix so as to give it a fine temper. From whatever cause, the discovery of iron or steel instruments among Egyptian antiquities is of extremely rare occurrence; and there are hardly any to which a date can be assigned with any approach to certainty. The most ancient appears to be a curved scimitar-like blade discovered by Belzoni beneath one of the Sphinxes of Karnak, and now in the British Museum.[19] Its date is stated to be about 600 b.c.[20] A wedge of iron appears, however, to have been found in a joint between the stones of the Great Pyramid.[21]

Without in any way disputing the occasional use of iron among the ancient Egyptians, nor the interpretation of the colours red and blue on the tomb of Rameses III. as being intended to represent blades of bronze and iron or steel respectively, I may venture to suggest that the round blue bar,[22] against which butchers are represented as sharpening their knives in some of the pictures in the sepulchres of Thebes, may have been too hastily regarded as a steel instead of as a whetstone of a blue colour. The existence of a steel for the purpose of sharpening seems to imply not only the knowledge of the preparation of the metal and its subsequent hardening, but also of files or of other tools to produce the peculiar striated surface to which the sharpening property of a steel is due. Had such tools been known, it seems almost impossible that no trace of them should have come down to our times. Moreover, if used for sharpening bronze knives, a steel such as at present used would sooner become clogged and unfit for use than if employed for sharpening steel knives.

Lepsius[23] has observed that the pictures of the old Empire do not afford an example of arms painted in blue, the metal of weapons being always painted in red or bright brown. Iron was but little used under the old Empire; copper was employed in its stead where the hardness of iron was not indispensable.

However this may be, it seems admitted on all hands that the use of iron in Egypt in early times was much restricted, probably from some religious motive. May not this have arisen from the first iron there known having been, as it appears to have been in some other countries, of meteoric origin? The Coptic name for iron, ⲂⲈⲚⲒⲠⲈ which has been interpreted by Professor Lauth[24] as “the Stone of Heaven,” strongly favours such a view. The resemblance of this term to ⲂⲀⲀ-Ⲛ-ⲠⲈ, the baa of heaven, or celestial iron, has also been pointed out by M. Chabas,[25] who, however, is inclined to consider that steel was so called on account of its reflecting the colour of the sky. If the iron in use among the early Egyptians were meteoric, and its celestial origin acknowledged, both its rarity and its restricted use would be accounted for. The term “bone of Typhon,” as applied to iron, is given by Plutarch on the authority of Manetho, who wrote in the days of the first Ptolemy. It appears to be used only in contrast to the name “bone of Horus,” which, according to the same author, was applied to the loadstone, and it seems difficult to admit any great antiquity for the appellation, or to connect it with a period when iron was at all rare, or its use restricted.

Although the use of iron in Egypt was at an early period comparatively unknown, that of bronze was most extensive. The weapons of war,[26] the tools for various trades, including those of the engraver and sculptor, were all made of that metal, which in its crude form served also as a kind of circulating medium. It appears to have been mainly imported from Asia, some of the principal sources of copper being in the peninsula of Sinai. One of the chief mines was situated at Sarbout-el-Khadem, where both turquoises and copper ore were extracted, and the latter smelted at Wady-Nash. The copper mines of Wady-Magarah are thought to have been worked as early as the second dynasty, upwards of 3000 years b.c.; and in connection with ancient Egyptian mining, it is worthwhile again to cite Agatharchides,[27] whose testimony I have already adduced in my “Ancient Stone Implements,” and who relates that in his time, circa b.c. 100, there were found buried in some ancient gold-mines in Upper Egypt the bronze chisels or wedges (λατομίδες χαλκᾶι) of the old miners, and who accounts for their being of that metal by the fact that when those mines were wrought, men were in no way acquainted with the use of iron.

In the seventh century b.c., however, iron must have been in general use in Egypt, for on the landing of the Carians and Ionians,[28] who were armed with bronze, an Egyptian, who had never before seen men armed with that metal, ran to Psammetichus to inform him that brazen men had risen from the sea and were wasting the country. As Psammetichus himself is described as wearing a brazen helmet, the arms mentioned would seem to have been offensive rather than defensive.

The source whence the tin, which formed a constituent part of the bronze, was derived, is much more uncertain. Indeed, to judge from M. Chabas’ silence, its name and hieroglyphic are unknown, though from some of the uses to which the metal designated by

was applied, it seems possible that it may have been tin.

On the whole, to judge from documentary evidence alone, the question as to the successive use of the different metals in Egypt seems to be excessively obscure, some of them being almost impossible to identify by name or representative sign. If, however, we turn to the actual relics of the past, we find bronze tools and weapons in abundance, while those of iron are extremely scarce, and are either of late date or at best of uncertain age. So strong, indeed, is the material evidence, that the late Mr. Crawfurd,[29] while disputing any general and universal sequence of iron to bronze, confesses that Ancient Egypt seems to offer a case in which a Bronze Age clearly preceded an Iron one, or at least in which cutting instruments of bronze preceded those of iron.

Among the Assyrians iron seems to have been in considerable use at an early date, and to have been exported from that country to Egypt, but knives and long chisels or hatchets of bronze were among the objects found at Tel Sifr, in Southern Babylonia. The earliest bronze image to which a date can be assigned appears to be that on which M. Oppert has read the name of Koudourmapouk, King of the Soumirs and Accads,[30] who, according to M. Lenormant, lived about 2100 b.c. Dr. S. Birch reads the name as Kudurmabug (about 2200 b.c.). Others in the British Museum are referred to Gudea, who reigned about 1700 b.c.

The mythology and literature of ancient Greece and Rome are so intimately connected, that in discussing the evidence afforded by classical writers it will be needless to separate them, but the testimony of both Greek and Latin authors may be taken indiscriminately, though, of course, the former afford the more ancient evidence. I have already cited much of this evidence in the Introductory Chapter of my book on Ancient Stone Implements, mainly with the view of showing the succession of bronze to stone; on the present occasion I have to re-adduce it, together with what corroborative testimony I am able to procure, in order to show that, along the northern shores of the Mediterranean, philology and history agree as to the priority of the use of bronze for cutting instruments to that of iron.

The Greek language itself bears witness to this fact, for the words significant of working in iron are not derived from the name of that metal, but from that of bronze, and the old forms of χαλκεύς and χαλκεύειν remained in use in connection with the smith and his work long after the blacksmith had to a great extent superseded the bronze-founder and the copper-smith in the fabrication of arms and cutlery.[31] An analogous transition in the meaning of words has been pointed out by Professor Max Müller. “The Mexicans called their own copper or bronze tepuztli, which is said to have meant originally hatchet. The same word is now used for iron, with which the Mexicans first became acquainted through their intercourse with the Spaniards. Tepuztli then became a general name for metal, and when copper had to be distinguished from iron, the former was called red, the latter black tepuztli.”[32] I am not certain whether Professor Max Müller still retains the views which he expressed in 1864. He then pointed out[33] that “what makes it likely that iron was not known previous to the separation of the Aryan nations is the fact that its names vary in every one of their languages.” But there is a “name for copper, which is shared in common by Latin and the Teutonic languages, æs, æris, Gothic ais, Old High German êr, Modern German Er-z, Anglo-Saxon âr, English ore. Like chalkós, which originally meant copper, but came to mean metal in general, bronze or brass, the Latin æs, too, changed from the former to the latter meaning; and we can watch the same transition in the corresponding words of the Teutonic languages.... It is all the more curious, therefore, that the Sanskrit ayas, which is the same word as aes and aiz, should in Sanskrit have assumed the almost exclusive meaning of iron. I suspect, however, that in Sanskrit, too, ayas meant originally the metal, i.e. copper, and that as iron took the place of copper, the meaning of ayas was changed and specified.... In German, too, the name for iron was derived from the older name of copper. The Gothic eisarn, iron, is considered by Grimm as a derivative form of aiz, and the same scholar concludes from this that ‘in Germany bronze must have been in use before iron.’”

But to return to Greece. It is, of course, somewhat doubtful how far the word χαλκὸς, as used by the earliest Greek authors, was intended to apply to unalloyed copper, or to that mixture of copper and tin which we now know as bronze. Mr. Gladstone,[34] who on all questions relating to Homer ought to be one of the best living authorities, regards the word as meaning copper: firstly, because it is always spoken of by Homer as a pure metal along with other pure metals; secondly, on account of the epithets ἐρυθρὸς, ἤνοψ, and νώροψ, which mean red, bright, and gleaming, being applied to it, and which Mr. Gladstone considers to be inapplicable to bronze; and thirdly, because Homer does not appear to have known anything at all of the fusion or alloying of metals. The second reason he considers further strengthened by the probability that Homer would not represent the walls of the palace of Alcinous as plated with bronze, nor introduce a heaven of bronze among the imposing imagery of battle (Il., xvii. 424). On the whole he concludes that χαλκὸς was copper hardened by some method, as some think by the agency of water, or else and more probably according to a very simple process, by cooling slowly in the air.[35]

I regret to say that these conclusions appear to me to be founded to some extent on false premises and on more than one misconception. The process of heating copper and then dipping it in water or allowing it slowly to cool, so far from being adapted for hardening that metal, is that which is usually adopted for annealing or softening it. While the plunging into cold water of steel at a red heat has the effect of rendering that metal intensely hard, on copper the reverse is the result; and, as Dr. Percy has observed,[36] it is immaterial whether the cooling after annealing—or restoring its malleability by means of heat—takes place slowly or rapidly. Indeed, one alloy of copper and tin is rendered most malleable by rapid cooling.

It has been stated[37] that bronze of the ancient composition may by cooling it slowly be rendered as hard as steel, and at the same time less brittle, but this statement seems to require confirmation.

According to some[38] the impossibility of hardening bronze like steel by dipping it into water had passed into a proverb so early as the days of Æschylus, but “χαλκοῦ βαφάς” has by others been regarded as referring to the impossibility of dyeing metal.[39] Some of the commentators on Hesiod and Homer speak, however, distinctly as to a process of hardening bronze by a dipping or βαφὴ, and Virgil[40] represents the Cyclopes as dipping the hissing bronze in water—

“Alii stridentia tingunt

Æra lacu”—

but the idea of bronze being hardened or tempered by this process appears to me to have been based on a false analogy between this metal and steel, or even iron. The French chemist, Geoffroy, thought he had succeeded in imitating the temper of an ancient bronze sword, but no details are given as to whether he added more than the usual proportion of tin to his copper, or whether he hardened the edge with a hammer.

With regard to the other reasons adduced by Mr. Gladstone, it is no doubt true that χαλκὸς is occasionally spoken of by Homer as a pure metal, mainly, however, it may be argued, in consequence of the same name being applied to both copper and bronze, if not, indeed, like the Latin “æs,” to copper, bronze, and brass. We find, moreover, that tin, for thus we must translate κασσίτερος, is mentioned by Homer; and as this metal appears in ancient times to have been mainly, though not exclusively, employed for the purpose of alloying copper, we must from this fact infer that the use of bronze was not unknown. In the celebrated description of the fashioning of the shield of Achilles by Vulcan—which may for the moment be assumed to be of the same age as the rest of the Iliad—we find the copper and tin mentioned in juxtaposition with each other; and if it had been intended to represent Hephaistos as engaged in mixing and melting bronze, the description could not have been more complete.[41]

Χαλκὸς δ̓ έν πυρὶ βάλλεν ἀτειρέα, κασσίτερόν τε.

Even the term indomitable may refer to the difficulty of melting copper in its unalloyed condition.

But tin was also used in the pure condition. In the breast-plate of Agamemnon[42] there were ten bands of black κύανος, twelve of gold, and twenty of tin. In his shield[43] were twenty bosses of tin. The cows[44] on the shield of Achilles were made of both gold and tin, and his greaves[45] of soft tin, and the border of the breast-plate of Asteropæus[46] was formed of glittering tin.

This collocation of various metals, or inlaying them by way of ornament, calls to mind some of the pottery and bronze pins of the Swiss Lake dwellings, which are decorated with inlaid tin, and the remarkable bronze bracelet found at Mœrigen,[47] which is inlaid with iron and a yellow brass by way of ornament.

With regard to the epithets red, bright, and gleaming, they are perfectly applicable to bronze in its polished condition, though they ill assort with the popular idea of bronze, which usually assigns to that metal the brown or greenish hues it acquires by oxidation and exposure to atmospheric influences. As a matter of fact, the red colour[48] of copper, though certainly rendered more yellow, is not greatly impaired by an admixture of tin within the proportions now used by engineers, viz. up to about two and a half ounces to the pound, or about 15 per cent. As to the bright and shining properties of the metal, Virgil, when no doubt speaking of bronze swords and shields, makes special mention of their glitter—[49]

“Æratæque micant peltæ, micat æreus ensis.”

Indeed, the mere fact of the swords of Homer being made of χαλκὸς is in favour of that metal being bronze, as pure copper would be singularly inapplicable to such a purpose, and certainly no copper sword would break into three or four pieces at a blow instead of being merely bent.[50]

The bending of the points of the spear-heads against the shields of the adversaries is, however, in favour of these weapons having been of copper rather than of bronze.[51]

As to Homer having been unacquainted with the fusion or alloying of metals, it may fairly be urged that without such knowledge it would have been impossible to work so freely as he has described, in gold, silver, and tin; and that the only reason for which Vulcan could have thrown the latter metal into the fire must have been in order to melt it.

Whether steel was designated by the term κύανος is a matter of considerable doubt, and certainly in later times that word was applied to a substance occasionally used as a blue pigment, not improbably a dark blue carbonate of copper. Assuming the word to mean a metal, the difficulty in regarding it as significant of steel appears in a great measure due to the colour implied by the adjective form κύανεος, being a dark blue.[52] If, however, it were the custom even in those days to colour steel blue by exposing it, after it had been polished, to a certain degree of heat—as is usually done with watch and clock springs at the present day—the deep blue colour of the sky or sea might well receive such an epithet. That steel of some kind was known in Homeric days is abundantly evident from the process of hardening an axe by dipping it in cold water while heated, which is so graphically described in the Odyssey.

If κύανος be really steel, we can also understand the epithet black[53] being occasionally applied to it, even though the adjective derived from it had the signification of blue.

According to the Arundelian Marbles, iron was discovered b.c. 1432,[54] or 248 years before the taking of Troy, but though we have occasional mention of this metal and of steel in the Homeric poems, yet weapons and tools of bronze are far more commonly mentioned and described. Trees, for instance, are cut down and wood carved with tools of bronze; and the battle-axe of Menelaus[55] is of excellent bronze with an olive-wood handle, long and well polished.

Before noticing further the early use of iron in Greece, it will be well to see what other authors than Homer say as to the origin and ancient use of bronze in that country.

The name of the principal metal of which it is composed, copper, bears witness to one of the chief sources of its supply having been the island of Cyprus. It would appear that Tamassus in this island was in ancient times a noted mart for this metal, as it is according to Nitzsch and other critics the Temese[56] mentioned in Homer as being resorted to in order to exchange iron for χαλκὸς, which in this as well as some other passages seems to stand for copper and not bronze.

The advantage arising from mixing a proportion of tin with the copper, and thus rendering it at the same time more fusible and harder, must have been known before the dawn of Grecian history.

The accounts given by early Greek writers as to the first discoverer of the art of making bronze by an admixture of copper and tin vary considerably, and thus prove that even in the days when these notices were written the art was of ancient date.

Theophrastus makes Delas, a Phrygian, whom Aristotle[57] regards as a Lydian, to have been the inventor of bronze. Pausanias[58] ascribes the honour of first casting statues in bronze to Rhœcus and Theodorus the Samians, who appear to have lived about 640 b.c. They are also said to have improved the accuracy of casting, but no doubt the process on a smaller scale was practised long before their time. Rhœcus and his colleague are also reported to have discovered the art of casting iron,[59] but no really ancient objects of cast iron have as yet been discovered.

The invention of the metals gold, silver, and copper is also ascribed to the Idæan Dactyli,[60] or the Telchines, who made the sickle of Chronos[61] and the trident of Poseidon.[62]

Though, as has already been observed, iron and even steel were not unknown in the days of Homer, both seem to have been of considerable rarity, and it is by no means improbable that, as appears to have been the case with the Egyptians, the first iron used by the Greeks was of meteoric origin. I have elsewhere[63] called attention to the possible connection of the Greek name for iron (σίδηρος) with ἀστήρ, often applied to a shooting-star or meteor, and with the Latin Sidera and the English Star, though it is unsafe to insist too much on mere verbal similarity. In an interesting article on the use of meteoric iron by Dr. L. Beck,[64] of Biebrich on the Rhine, the suggestion is made that the final ηρος of σίδηρος is a form of the Aryan ais (conf. æs, æris). Dr. Beck, however, inclines to the opinion that the recognition of certain meteorites as iron was first made at a time subsequent to the discovery of the means of smelting iron from its ore.

The self-fused mass or disc of iron,[65] σόλον αὐτοχόωνον, which formed one of the prizes at the funeral games of Patroclus, may possibly have been meteoric, but this is very doubtful, as the forging of iron, and the trouble and care it involved, were well known in those days, as is evident from the epithet πολύκμητος so often bestowed upon that metal.

For a considerable time after the Homeric period bronze remained in use for offensive weapons, especially for those intended for piercing rather than cutting, such as spears, lances, and arrows, as well as for those which were merely defensive, such as shields, cuirasses, helmets, and greaves. Even swords were also sometimes of bronze, or at all events the tradition of their use was preserved by the poets. Thus we find Euripides[66] speaking of the bronze-speared Trojans, χαλκεγχέων Τρώων, and Virgil[67] describing the glitter of the bronze swords of some of the host of Turnus.

Probably, however, the use of the word χαλκὸς was not restricted to copper or bronze, but also came in time to mean metal in general, and thus extended to iron, a worker in which metal was, as we have already seen, termed a χαλκεύς.

The succession of iron to bronze is fully recognised by both Greek and Latin authors. The passage in Hesiod,[68] where he speaks of the third generation of men who had arms of bronze and houses of bronze, who ploughed with bronze, for the black iron did not exist, is already hackneyed; nor is the record of Lucretius[69] less well known:—

“Arma antiqua, manus, ungues, dentesque fuerunt,
Et lapides, et item sylvarum fragmina rami, ...
Posterius ferri vis est, ærisque reperta,
Sed prior æris erat quam ferri cognitus usus; ...
Inde minutatim processit ferreus ensis,
Versaque in opprobrium species est falcis ahenæ,
Et ferro cœpere solum proscindere terræ.”

The difference between the age of Homer and Hesiod in respect to the use of metals is well described by Mr. Gladstone. The former[70] “lived at a time when the use of iron (in Greece) was just commencing, when the commodity was rare, and when its value was very great;” but in the days of Hesiod “iron, as compared with copper, had come to be the inferior, that is to say the cheaper metal,” and the poet “looks back from his iron age with an admiring envy on the heroic period.”

Hesiod gives to Hercules[71] a helmet of steel and a sword of iron, and to Saturn[72] a steel reaping-hook. His remark that at the feast of the gods the withered[73] part of a five-fingered branch should never be cut from the green part by black iron, shows that this metal was in common use, and that for religious ceremonies the older metal bronze retained its place.

Bronze was, however, a favourite metal with the poet, if not indeed in actual use long after iron was known,[74] for Pindar, about b.c. 470, still frequently cites spears and axes made of bronze.

By the time of Herodotus, who wrote before 400 b.c., the use of iron and steel was universal among the Greeks. He instances, as a fact worth recording, that the Massagetæ,[75] a powerful tribe which occupied the steppes on the east of the Caspian, made no use of iron or silver, but had an abundance of χαλκὸς and gold, pointing their spears and arrows and forming the heads of their battle-axes with the former metal. Among the Æthiopians,[76] on the contrary, he states that bronze was rarer and more precious than gold; nor was it in use among the Scythians.[77] The Sagartii[78] in the army of Xerxes are mentioned as not carrying arms either of bronze or iron except daggers, as if bronze were still of not unfrequent use.

Strabo,[79] at a much later date, thinks it worth while to record that among the Lusitanians the spears were tipped with bronze.

But certainly some centuries before the time of Herodotus, and probably as early as that of Homer, the Chalybes on the shores of the Euxine practised the manufacture of iron on a considerable scale, and from them came the Greek name for steel, χαλυψ.[80] Daïmachus, in the fourth century b.c., records that different sorts of steel are produced among the Chalybes in Sinope, Lydia, and Laconia. That of Sinope was used for smiths’ and carpenters’ tools; that of Laconia for files, drills for iron, stamps, and masons’ tools; and the Lydian kind for files, swords, razors, and knives. In Laconia iron is said to have formed the only currency in the days of Lycurgus.

Taking all the evidence into consideration, there can be no doubt that iron must have been known in Greece some ten or twelve centuries before our era, though, as already observed, it was at that time an extremely rare metal. It also appears that as early as b.c. 500, or even 600, iron or steel was in common use, though bronze had not been altogether superseded for offensive arms such as spear-heads and battle-axes.

The tradition of the earlier use of bronze still, however, remained even in later times, and the preference shown for its employment in religious rites, which I have mentioned elsewhere,[81] is a strong witness of this earlier use. It seems needless again to do more than mention the bronze ploughshare used at the foundation of Tuscan cities, the bronze knives and shears of the Sabine and Roman priests, and the bronze sickles of Medea and Elissa. I must, however, again bring forward the speculations of an intelligent Greek traveller, who wrote in the latter half of the second century of our era, as to the existence of what we should now term a Bronze Age in Greece.

Pausanias[82] relates how Lichas the Lacedæmonian, in the fifth century b.c., discovered the bones of Orestes, which his countrymen had been commanded by an oracle to seek. The Pythia[83] had described the place as one where two strong winds met, where form was opposed to form, and one evil lay upon another. These Lichas recognised in the two bellows of the smith, the hammer opposed to the anvil, and the iron lying on it. Pausanias on this observes that at that time they had already begun to use iron in war, and that if it had been in the days of the heroes it would have been bronze and not iron designated by the oracle as the evil, for in their days all arms were of bronze. For this he cites Homer as his authority, who speaks of the bronze axe of Pisander, and the arrow of Meriones. A farther argument he derives from the spear of Achilles, laid up in the temple of Minerva at Phaselis, and the sword of Memnon in that of Æsculapius at Nicomedia, which is entirely of bronze, while the ferrule and point of his spear are also of that metal.

The spear-head which lay with the bones of Theseus[84] in the Isle of Scyros was also of bronze, and probably the sword likewise. There are no works of Latin authors of a date nearly so remote as that of the earlier Greek writers, and long before the days of Ennius, iron was in general use in Italy. If the Articles of Peace which “Porsena, King of the Tuscans, tendered unto the people of Rome” were as Pliny[85] represents them, the Romans must even in those early days have had iron weapons, for they were forbidden the use of that metal except for tilling the ground. In b.c. 224 the Isumbrian Gauls who fought with Flaminius were already in possession of iron swords, the softness and flexibility of which led to the discomfiture of their owners. The Romans themselves seem but to have been badly armed so far as swords were concerned until the time of the Second Punic War, about b.c. 200, when they adopted the Spanish sword, and learnt the method of preparing it. Whether the modern Toledo and Bilbao blades are legitimate descendants of these old weapons we need not stop to inquire. In whatever manner the metal was prepared, so thoroughly was iron identified with the sword in classical times that ferrum and gladius were almost synonyms.

Pliny mentions that the best steel used in Rome was imported from China, a country in which copper or bronze swords are said to have been in use in the days of Ki,[86] the son of Yu, b.c. 2197-48, and those of iron under Kung-Kia, b.c. 1897-48, so that there also history points to a Bronze Age. But this by the way.

Looking at the fact that iron and steel were in such general use at Rome during the period of her wars in Western Europe, we may well believe that had any of the tribes with which the Roman forces came in contact been armed with bronze, such an unusual circumstance could hardly have escaped record. In the Augustan age the iron swords of Noricum were in great repute, and farther north in Germany, though iron did not abound, it was, according to Tacitus, used for spears and swords. The Catti had the metal in abundance, but among the Aestii, on the right coast of the Baltic, it was scarce. The Cimbrians in the first century b.c. had, according to Plutarch,[87] iron breast-plates, javelins, and large swords.

The Gauls of the North of France had in the time of Julius Cæsar[88] large iron mines which they worked by tunnelling; the bolts of their ships were made of that metal, and they had even chain cables of iron. The Britons of the South of England who were in such close communication with the opposite coast of Gaul must have had an equal acquaintance with iron. Cæsar mentions ingots or rings of iron as being used for money, and observes that iron is obtained on the sea-coast, but in small quantities, and adds that bronze was imported.[89] Strabo includes iron, as well as gold, silver, and corn, among the products of Britain. In Spain, as already mentioned, iron had long been known, so that from the concurrent testimony of several historians we may safely infer that in the time of Julius Cæsar, when this country was first exposed to Roman influences, it had already, like the neighbouring countries to the south, passed from the Bronze into the Iron Age.

Notwithstanding all this historical testimony in favour of the prior use of bronze to that of iron, there have been not a few authors who have maintained that the idea of a succession of stone, bronze, and iron is delusive when applied to Western Europe. Among these was the late Mr. Thomas Wright, who has gone so far as to express[90] “a firm conviction that not a bit of bronze which has been found in the British Islands belongs to an older date than that at which Cæsar wrote that the Britons obtained their bronze from abroad, meaning of course from Gaul.” “In fact these objects in bronze were Roman in character and in their primary origin.” As in the same page he goes on to show that two hundred years before Christ the swords of the Gauls were made of iron, and as his contentions have already been met by Sir John Lubbock,[91] and will, I think, be effectually disposed of by the facts subsequently to be mentioned in this volume, it seems needless to dwell on Mr. Wright’s opinions. I may, however, mention that,[92] while denying the antiquity of British, German, and Scandinavian weapons and tools of bronze, he admits that in Greece and Italy that metal was for a long period the only one employed for cutting instruments, as iron was not known in Greece until a comparatively late date.

About one hundred and thirty years ago,[93] in 1751, a discussion as to the date of bronze weapons took place among the members of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres of Paris, on the occasion of some bronze swords, a spear-head, and other objects being found near Gannat, in the Bourbonnais. Some antiquaries regarded them as weapons made for use; others as merely made for show. The Count de Caylus considered that the swords were Roman, though maintaining that copper or bronze must have been in earlier use than iron. Lévesque de la Ravalière maintained, on the contrary, that neither the Greeks, Romans, Gauls, nor Franks had ever made use of copper or bronze in their swords. The Abbé Barthélemy showed from ancient authors that the earliest arms of the Greeks were of bronze; that iron was only introduced about the time of the siege of Troy; and that in later times among the Romans there was no mention of bronze having been used for weapons of offence, and therefore that these swords were not Roman. Strangely enough, he went on to argue that they were Frankish, and of the time of Childeric. Had he been present at the opening of the tomb of that monarch in 1653 he would, however, have seen that he had an iron sword.[94]

A still warmer discussion than any which has taken place in England or France, one, in fact, almost amounting to an international war of words, has in more recent times arisen between some of the German antiquaries and those of the Scandinavian kingdoms of Denmark and Sweden.

So early as 1860[95] my friend Dr. Ludwig Lindenschmit, of Mainz, had commenced his attack on “the so-called Bronze Period,” and shown a disposition to regard all bronze antiquities of northern countries as of Italian origin, or, if made in the countries where found, as mere homely imitations of imported articles. Not content with this, he in 1875[96] again mustered his forces and renewed the campaign in even a more formal manner. He found a formidable ally in Dr. Hostmann, whose comments on Dr. Hans Hildebrand’s “Heathen Period in Sweden” are well worth the reading, and contain a vast amount of interesting information.

Dr. Hostmann’s method of dealing with Dr. Hans Hildebrand brought Dr. Sophus Müller[97] to the rescue, with whom Dr. Lindenschmit[98] at once grappled. Shortly after Dr. Hostmann[99] again appears upon the scene, and before engaging with Dr. Sophus Müller goes so far as to argue that while Greek swords of iron are known to belong to the eighth century B.C., no bronze sword of that country can with safety be assigned to an earlier date than the sixth century, and, indeed, these may have been only weapons of parade, or possibly funereal offerings in lieu of efficient swords. Rector Genthe[100] also engages in the fight upon the same side.

These three antagonists bring Sophus Müller[101] again to the front, and as one great argument of his opponents was that bronze objects could not be produced with the finish and ornamentation which is found upon them without the use of iron and steel tools, he brings forward an official document signed by four authorities in the museum at Copenhagen, and stating that precisely similar ornamentation to the spirals, zigzags, and punched lines which occur on Scandinavian bronze antiquities had been produced in their presence by a workman using bronze tools only on a plate of bronze. Both plate and tools were of the same alloy, viz. 9 of copper to 1 of tin.

On this a final charge is made by Professor Hostmann[102] and Dr. Lindenschmit, the former of whom produces a kind of affidavit from the late director of the Polytechnic School at Hanover and the court medallist of the same town, to the effect that certain kinds of punched work cannot be produced with bronze punches, and the editors of the Archiv think it best to close the discussion after Dr. Lindenschmit’s final retort.

I have not thought it worth while to enter into all the details of this controversy, as even to summarise them would occupy more room than I could spare. It seems to me, however, that a considerable amount of misconception must have existed in the minds of some of the disputants, both as to the accepted meaning of the term Bronze Age, as applied not chronologically, but to a certain stage of civilisation, and as to the limitation of the objects which can with propriety be referred to that age. No antiquary of experience will deny that many bronze ornaments, and even some bronze weapons, remained in use long after iron and even steel were known, any more than he would deny that the use of stone for certain purposes continued not only after bronze was known, but even after iron and steel were in general use, and, in fact, up to the present time, not only in barbarian but in civilised countries. Our flint strike-a-lights and our burnishers are still of much the same character as they were some thousands of years ago, and afford convincing instances of this persistent use.

The real question at issue is not whether any bronze weapons co-existed with those of iron and steel in Western Europe, but whether any of them were there in use at a period when iron and steel were unknown. Moreover, it is not a question as to whence the knowledge of bronze was derived, nor whether at the time the Scandinavians or Britons were using bronze for their tools and weapons, the inhabitants of Greece and Italy were already acquainted with iron and steel; but it is a question whether in each individual country there arrived a time when bronze came into use and for certain purposes superseded stone, while iron and steel were practically unknown.

This is a question to be solved by evidence, though in the nature of things that evidence must to some extent be of a negative character. When barrow after barrow is opened, and weapons of bronze and stone only are found accompanying the interments, and not a trace of iron or steel; when hoards of rough metal and broken bronze, together with the moulds of the bronze-founder and some of his stock-in-trade, are disinterred, and there is no trace of an iron tool among them—the presumption is strong that at the time when these men and these hoards were buried iron was not in use. When, moreover, by a careful examination of the forms of bronze instruments we can trace a certain amount of development which is in keeping with the peculiar properties of bronze and not with those of iron, and we can thus to some extent fix a kind of chronological succession in these forms, the inference is that this evolution of form, which must have required a considerable amount of time, took place without its course being affected by any introduction of a fresh and qualifying influence in the shape of iron tools and weapons.

When, however, in various countries we find interments and even cemeteries in which bronze and iron weapons and instruments are intermingled, and the forms of those in bronze are what we have learnt from other sources to regard as the latest, while the forms in iron are not those for which that metal is best adapted, but are almost servile copies of the bronze instruments found with them, the proof of the one having succeeded the other is almost absolutely conclusive.

The lessons taught by such cemeteries as that at Hallstatt, in Austria, and by our own Late Celtic interments, such as those at Arras, in Yorkshire, are of the highest importance in this question.

It is not, however, to be supposed that even in countries by no means geographically remote from each other the introduction either of iron or bronze must of necessity have taken place at one and the same chronological period. Near the shores of the Mediterranean the use of each metal no doubt prevailed far earlier than in any of the northern countries of Europe; and though the knowledge of metals probably spread from certain centres, its progress can have been but slow, for in each part of Europe there appears to have been some special development, particularly in the forms of bronze instruments, and there is no absolute uniformity in their types extending over any large area. In each country the process of manufacture was carried on, and though some commerce in tools and arms of bronze no doubt took place between neighbouring tribes, yet as a rule there are local peculiarities characteristic of special districts.

So marked are these that a practised archæologist can in almost all cases, on inspection of a group of bronze antiquities, fix with some degree of confidence the country in which they were found. To this rule Britain offers no exception, and though some forms of instruments were no doubt imported, yet, as will subsequently be seen, our types are for the most part indigenous.

As to the ornamentation of bronze by bronze tools, I have seen none in this country on objects which I should refer to the Bronze Age but what could have been effected by means of bronze punches, of which indeed examples have been discovered in bronze-founders’ hoards in France,[103] and what are probably such also in Britain. Such ornamentation is, however, simple compared with that on many of the Danish forms, and yet I have seen the complicated Scandinavian ornaments accurately and sharply reproduced by Dr. Otto Tischler, by means of bronze tools only, on bronze of the ordinary ancient alloy.

But even supposing that iron and steel were known during some part of the so-called Bronze Age, I do not see in what manner it would affect the main features of the case or the interest attaching to the bronze objects which I am about to describe. “De non apparentibus et non existentibus eadem est ratio” is a maxim of some weight in archæology as well as in law; and in the absence of iron and all trace of its influence, it matters but little whether it was known or not, except in so far as a neglect of its use would argue some want of intelligence on the part of those who did not avail themselves of so useful a metal. It will be seen hereafter that some of the objects described in these pages actually do belong to an Iron Period, and nothing could better illustrate the transition of one Period into another, or the overlapping of the Bronze Age upon that of Iron, than the fact that in these pages devoted to the Bronze Period I must of necessity describe many objects which were still in use when iron and steel were superseding bronze, in the same manner as in my “Ancient Stone Implements” I was forced to describe many forms, such as battle-axes, arrow-heads, and bracers, which avowedly belonged to the Bronze Period.

A point which is usually raised by those who maintain the priority of the use of iron to that of bronze is, that inasmuch as it is more readily oxidized and dissolved by acids naturally present in the soil, iron may have disappeared, and indeed has done so, while bronze has been left; so that the absence of iron as an accompaniment to all early interments counts for nothing. Professor Rolleston,[104] in a paper on the three periods known as the Iron, the Bronze, and the Stone Ages, has well dealt with this point; and observes that in some graves of the Bronze Period the objects contained are incrusted with carbonate of lime, which would have protected any iron instrument of the Bronze Period as well as it has done those of Saxon times. Not only are the iron weapons discovered in Saxon cemeteries often in almost perfect preservation, but on the sites of Roman occupation whole hoards of iron tools have been found but little injured by rust. The fact that at Hallstatt and other places in which graves have been examined belonging to the transitional period, when both iron and bronze were in use together, the weapons and tools of iron, though oxidized, still retain their form and character as completely as those in bronze, also affords strong ground for believing that had iron been present with bronze in other early interments it would also have been preserved. The importance attaching to the reputed occurrence of bronze swords with Roman coins as late as the time of Magnentius cannot be better illustrated than by a discovery of my own in the ancient cemetery of Hallstatt. In company with Sir John Lubbock I was engaged in opening a grave in which we had come to an interment of the Early Iron Age, accompanied by a socketed celt and spear-heads of iron, when amidst the bones I caught sight of a thin metallic disc of a yellowish colour which looked like a coin. Up to that time no coin had ever been found in any one of the many hundred graves which had been examined, and I eagerly picked up this disc. It proved to be a “sechser,” or six-kreutzer piece, with the date 1826, which by some means had worked its way down among the crevices in the stony ground, and which from its appearance had evidently been buried some years. Had this coin been of Roman date it might have afforded an argument for bringing down the date of the Hallstatt cemetery some centuries in the chronological scale. As it is, it affords a wholesome caution against drawing important inferences from the mere collocation of objects when there is any possibility of the apparent association being only due to accident.

In further illustration of the succession of the three Ages of Stone, Bronze, and Iron in Western Europe, I might go on to cite cases of the actual superposition of the objects of one age over those of another, such as has been observed in several barrows and in the well-known instance of the cone of La Tinière, in the Lake of Geneva, recorded by Morlot.

It will, however, be thought that enough, if not more than enough, has already been said on the general question of a Bronze Age in a book particularly devoted to the weapons and instruments of bronze found in the British Isles. It is now time to proceed with the examination and description of their various forms; and in doing this I propose to treat separately, so far as possible, the different classes of instruments intended each for some special purpose, and at the same time to point out their analogies with instruments of the same character found in other parts of Europe. Their chronological sequence so far as it can be ascertained, the position in time of the Bronze Period of Britain and Ireland, and the sources from which our bronze civilisation was derived, will be discussed in a concluding chapter.

I begin with the instrument of the most common occurrence, the so-called celt.

CHAPTER II.

CELTS.

Of all the forms of bronze instruments the hatchet or axe, to which the name of celt has been applied, is perhaps the most common and the best known. It is also probably among the earliest of the instruments fabricated from metal, though in this country it is possible that some of the cutting instruments, such as the knife-daggers, which required a less amount of metal for their formation, are of equal or greater antiquity.

These tools or weapons—for, like the American tomahawk, they seem to have been in use for peaceful as well as warlike purposes—may be divided into several classes. Celts may be described as flat; flanged, or having ribs along the sides; winged, or having the side flanges extended so as almost to form a socket for the handle on either side of the blade, to which variety the name of palstave has been given; and socketed. Of most of these classes there are several varieties, as will be seen farther on.

The name of celt which has been given to these instruments is derived from the doubtful Latin word “celtis” or “celtes,” a chisel, which is in its turn said to be derived à cœlando (from carving), and to be the equivalent of cœlum.

The only author in whose works the word is found is St. Jerome, and it is employed both in his Vulgate translation of the Book of Job[105] and in a quotation from that book in his Epistle to Pammachius. The word also occurs in an inscription recorded by Gruter and Aldus,[106] but as this inscription is a modern forgery, it does not add to the authority of the word “celtis.”

Mr. Knight Watson, Sec. S. A., in an interesting paper communicated to the Society of Antiquaries of London,[107] has given several details as to the origin and use of this word, which he considers to have been founded on a misreading of the word certe, and the derivation of which from cœlo he regards as impossible. There can be no doubt, as Beger pointed out two centuries ago, that a number of MSS. of the Vulgate read certe instead of celte in the passage in Job already mentioned, and that in all probability these are the most ancient and the best. But this only adds to the difficulty of understanding how a recently invented and an unknown word, such as celte is presumed to be, can have ever supplanted a well-known word like certe; and so far as the Burial Service of the Roman Catholic Church is concerned can have maintained its ground for centuries. Nor is this difficulty diminished when we consider that the ordinary and proper translation of the Hebrew לֹער is either “in æternum” or “in testimonium,” according as the word is pointed לָעַר or לְעֵר, and that, so far as I am aware, there is no other instance of its being translated “certe.” On the other hand, a nearly similar word, פְעֵס “with a stylus,” or, as it is translated, “a pen,” occurs in the same passage; and assuming that this was by some accident read for לער by St. Jerome, he would have thought that the word for stylus was used twice over, and have inserted some word to designate a graving tool, by way of a synonym. The probability of such an error would be increased if his MS. had the lines arranged in couplets in accordance with its poetical character, the passage standing thus when un-pointed:—

עפרתו ברול בעס
יתצבון בַצזר לער

Very possibly the word used by St. Jerome may not have been celte but cœlo, and the corruption into celte in order to make a distinction between heaven and a chisel would then at all events have been possible.

The other contention involves two extreme improbabilities—the one, that St. Jerome, having in his second revision of the Bible translated the passage as “in testimonium in petris sculpantur,” should in the Vulgate have given the inaccurate rendering “certe sculpantur in silice;” the other and the more extreme of the two, that the well-known word certe should have been ousted by a word like celte had it been utterly new-fangled.

Under any view of the case there are considerable difficulties, but as the word celt has now obtained a firm hold in our language, it will be convenient to retain it, whatever its origin or derivation.

It has been the fashion among some who are fond of novelties to call these instruments “kelts,” possibly from some mental association of the instruments with a Celtic or Keltic population. From some such cause also some of the French antiquaries must have coined the new plural to the word, Celtœ. Even in this country it has been said[108] with regard to “the ancient weapon denominated the celt,” “Our antiquarians have commonly ascribed them to the ancient Celtæ, and hence have given them this unmeaning appellation.” If any one prefers pronouncing celt as “kelt,” or celestial as “kelestial,” let him do so; but at all events let us adhere to the old spelling. How the Romans of the time of St. Jerome would have pronounced the word cœlum or celtis may be inferred from the punning line of Ausonius with regard to Venus.[109]

“Orta salo, suscepta solo, patre edita cœlo.”

The first author of modern times whose use of the word in connection with Celts I can trace is Beger, who, in his “Thesaurus Brandenburgicus”[110] (1696), gives an engraving of a celt of the palstave form, under the title Celtes, together with the following dialogue:—

“Et nomen et instrumentum mihi obscurum est, infit Archæophilus; Instrumentum Statuariorum est, respondit Dulodorus, qui simulacra ex Cera, Alabastro, aliisque lapidum generibus cædunt et poliunt. Græcis dicitur Ἐγκοπεὺς, quâ voce Lucianus usus est in Somnio, ubi cum lusum non insuavem dixisset, Deos sculpere, et parva quædam simulacra adornare, addit ἐγκοπέα γὰρ τινά μοι δοὺς, scilicet avunculus, id quod Joh. Benedictus vertit, Celte datâ. Celte? excepit Archæophilus; at nisi fallor hæc vox Latinis incognita est? Habetur, inquit Dulodorus, in versione vulgatâ Libri Hiob c. 19 quamvis alii non Celte, sed Certe ibi legant, quod tamen minus quadrat. Quicquid sit, instrumentum Statuariorum hoc esse, ex formâ patet, figuris incidendis aptissima; neque enim opinio Molineti videtur admittenda, qui Securim appellat, cum nullus aptandi manubrii locus huic faveat. Metallum reposuit Archæophilus, minus videtur convenire. Instrumentum hoc ex ære est, quod duritiem lapidum nescio an superare potuerit? Uti lapides diversi sunt, regessit Dulodorus, ita diversa fuisse etiam metalla instrumentorum iis cædendis destinatorum, facilè cesserim. Vet. Gloss. Celtem instrumentum ferreum dicit proculdubio quòd durioribus lapidibus ferreum chalybe munitum servierit. Hoc autem non obstat, ut æreum vel ceris, vel terris, vel lapidibus mollioribus fuerit adhibitum. Si tamen res Tibi minus probetur, me non contradicente, molliori vocabulo γλυφεῖον cœlum poteris et appellare et credere. Γλυφεῖα etiam Statuariorum instrumenta fuisse, ex allegato modò Luciano planum est, ubi Humanitas, si me relinquis, inquit, σχῆμα δουλοπρεπὲς ἀναλήψη, καὶ μολία, καὶ γλυφεῖα, καὶ κοπέας, καὶ κολαπτῆρας ἐν ταῖν χεροῖν ἕξεις, habitum servilem assumes, Vectes, COELA, CELTES, Scalpra præ manibus habebis.”

The idea of a bronze celt being a statuary’s chisel for carving in wax, alabaster, and the softer kinds of stone will seem the less absurd if we remember that, at the time when Beger wrote, the manner in which such instruments were hafted was unknown, and that all antiquities of bronze were generally regarded as being of Roman or Greek origin.

Dr. Olaf Worm, a Danish antiquary of the seventeenth century, was more enlightened than Beger, for in his “Museum Wormianum,”[111] published in 1655, he states his belief that bronze weapons had formerly been in use in Denmark, and cites two flat or flanged celts, or cunei, as he calls them, found in Jutland, which he regards as hand weapons for close encounters. He also was, nevertheless, at a loss to know how they were hafted, for he adds that had they but been provided with shaft-holes he should have considered them to have been axes.

In a work treating of the bronze antiquities of Britain we must, however, first consider the opinion of British antiquaries, by whom the word celt had been completely adopted as the name for bronze hatchets and axes by the middle of the last century. Borlase,[112] in his “Antiquities of Cornwall,” 1754, speaking of some “spear-heads” of copper mentioned by Leland, says that by the spear-heads he certainly meant those which we (from Begerus) now call Celts. Leland’s words are as follows:[113]—“There was found of late Yeres syns Spere Heddes, Axis for Warre, and Swerdes of coper wrapped up in lynid scant perished nere the Mount in S. Hilaries Paroch in Tynne Works;” so that it by no means follows but that he was right in speaking of spear-heads, for if there were any celts among the objects discovered they were probably termed battle-axes by Leland.

Camden makes mention of the same find:[114] “At the foote of this mountaine (St. Michael’s Mount), within the memorie of our Fathers, whiles men were digging up of tin, they found Spear-heads, axes, and swordes of brasse wrapped in linnen, such as were sometimes found within the forrest of Hercinia in Germanie, and not long since in our Wales. For evident it is by the monuments of ancient Writers that the Greeks, the Cimbrians, and the Britans used brazen weapons, although the wounds given with brasse bee lesse hurtfull, as in which mettall there is a medicinable vertue to heale, according as Macrobius reporteth out of Aristotle. But happily that age was not so cunning in devising meanes to mischiefe and murthers as ours is.”

Hearne, the editor of Leland’s “Itinerary,” took a less philosophical view of these instruments. Writing to Thoresby[115] in 1709, he maintains that some old instruments of bronze found near Bramham Moor, Yorkshire, are not the heads of British spears; on the contrary, they are Roman, not axes used in their sacrifices, nor the heads of spears and javelins, but chisels which were used to cut and polish the stones in their tents. Such instruments were also used in making the Roman highways and in draining their fens.

Plot[116] also, at a somewhat earlier date, asserted a Roman origin for bronze celts, which he regarded as the heads of bolts, founding his opinion mainly on two, which are engraved in the Museum Moscardi. These, which are reproduced in the Archæologia, vol. v. Pl. VIII. 18 and 19, are of the palstave form, and were regarded by Moscardo[117] as the heads of great darts to be thrown from a catapult. A flat celt found in Staffordshire,[118] Plot takes to be the head of a Roman securis with which the Popæ slew their sacrifices.

Rowland,[119] in his “Mona Antiqua Restaurata,” 1723, suggested that looped palstaves fastened by a thong to a staff might be used as war flails.

The imaginative Dr. Stukeley, in the year 1724, communicated to the Society of Antiquaries a discourse on the use of celts, which is to be found in the Minute Book of the Society. An abstract of it is given by Mr. Lort[120] in his paper subsequently mentioned. Dr. Stukeley undertook to show that celts were British and appertaining to the Druids, who, when not using them to cut off the boughs of oak and mistletoe, put them in their pouches, or hung them to their girdles by the little ring or loop at the side. In a more sensible manner he divided them into two classes, the recipient and the received; that is to say, the socketed, in which the handle was received, and the flat and palstave forms, which entered into a notch in the handle.

Borlase,[121] notwithstanding that he was under the impression that a number of socketed celts found at Karnbrê in 1744 were accompanied by Roman coins, one of them at least as late as the time of Constantius I., did “not take them to be purely Roman, foreign, or of Italian invention and workmanship.”

He argues that the Romans of Italy would not have made such instruments of brass after Julius Cæsar’s time, when the superior hardness of iron was so well understood, and that metal was so easily to be procured. Farther, that no representations of such weapons occur on the Trajan or Antonine Columns, that few specimens exist in the cabinets of the curious in Italy, where they are regarded as Transalpine antiquities, and that none have been found among the ruins of Herculaneum;[122] nor are any published in the Museum Romanum or the Museum Kircherianum. He concludes that they were made and used in Britain, but that though they were originally of British invention and fabric, they were for the most part made when the Britons had improved their arts under their Roman masters, as most of them seem too correct and shapely for the Britons before the Julian conquest.

As to the uses of celts, Borlase cites the various opinions of the learned, and observes that if they had not been advanced by men of learning it would be scarce excusable to mention some of them, much less to refute them. They had been taken for heads of walking staffs, for chisels to cut stone withal (as such instruments must have been absolutely necessary in making the great Roman roads), as tools with which to engrave letters and inscriptions, as the sickles with which the Druids cut the sacred mistletoe, and as rests to support the lituus of the Roman augurs. After all, however, Borlase himself comes to the somewhat lame conclusion that they formed the head or arming of the spear, the javelin, or the arrow, and thinks that Mr. Rowland comes the nearest to the truth of any author he has read, when he says that they might be used with a string to draw them back, and something like a feather to guide them in flying towards the enemy, and calls them sling-hatchets. He concedes, however, that for such weighty heads there was no occasion for feathers, and as for slinging of hatchets against an enemy, he does not remember any instance, ancient or modern. Some of the celts, moreover, are too light to do any execution if thrown from the hand.

The Rev. Mr. Lort,[123] who communicated some observations on celts to the Society of Antiquaries in 1776, differed from Dr. Borlase, and regarded a large flat celt found in the Lower Furness as manifestly designed to be held in the hand only, and much better adapted to the chipping of stone than to any other use which has hitherto been found out for it. He will not, however, take upon himself to assert that some socketed celts, which he also describes, were designed for the same purpose. Appended to the paper by Mr. Lort are notices of several bronze celts, which at different times had been brought under the notice of the Society of Antiquaries. Some which had been exhibited in 1735 were regarded by Mr. Benjamin Cooke and Mr. Collinson as Gaulish weapons used by the Roman auxiliaries at the time of Claudius. Mr. Cooke, however, took them to be axes, and mounted one of them on a shaft, citing Homer as his authority for doing so, and speaking of the ἀξίνην ἔυχαλκον.

The Rev. Samuel Pegge in 1787 makes some pertinent remarks respecting celts in a letter to Mr. Lort, which is published in the Archæologia.[124] He points out that from some of them having been found in barrows associated with spear-heads of flint, it is probable that some at least were military weapons. He also maintains that though the use of bronze originally preceded that of iron, yet that regard must be had to the circumstances of each country, so that it would not follow that a bronze celt found in Ireland was prior in age to the invention of iron. All that could be said was that it was older than the introduction of iron into Ireland, and when that was, no one could pretend to say. Mr. Pegge did not approve of the derivation of the name of celt from celtis or cœlare, but thought it derived from the name of the Celtic people who used the instruments. In his opinion the instruments were not Roman, especially as they were frequent in Ireland and in places where the Romans never were settled. The specimen on which he comments is of the palstave form, and, though it might be mounted as a tool, he thinks it could never have served as an axe, but it might have tipped a dart or javelin.

Douglas[125] was of opinion that the bronze arms found in this country were not Roman, but that it was more reasonable to refer them to the early inhabitants, of probably not less than two centuries b.c.

Mr. C. J. Harford, F.S.A.,[126] writing in 1801, expressed his opinion that a clue as to the uses of celts might be obtained from a consideration of similar instruments which had been brought from the South Sea Islands. “Our rude forefathers doubtless attached the celt by thongs to the handle, in the same manner as modern savages do; and, like them, formed a most useful implement or destructive weapon from these simple materials.” He thought that the metal celts might have been fabricated abroad and exported to this country, just as we have sent to the South Sea Islands an imitation in iron of the stone hatchet there in use.

Coming down to later times, we find Sir Richard Colt Hoare,[127] who discovered a few flat and flanged celts in the Wiltshire barrows, regarding them as for domestic, and not for military, architectural, or religious purposes. He thought that the flat form must be the most ancient, from which the pattern of that with the socket for the insertion of a handle was taken; for among the numerous specimens described by Mr. Lort in the Archæologia, not one of the latter pattern is mentioned as having been discovered in a barrow. As many were found in Gaul, he rather supposed that they were imported from the Continent; or, perhaps, the art of making them might have been introduced from Gaul. From the method of hafting of one of those he found (see Fig. 189), he seems to have regarded the whole of them as chisels rather than hatchets.

Sir Joseph Banks,[128] in some observations communicated to the Society of Antiquaries in 1818, on an ancient celt found near Boston, Lincolnshire, pointed out the manner in which looped palstaves could be hafted so as to serve either as axes, adzes, or chisels. He thought that they were ill adapted for any warlike purposes, and regarded them as tools such as might be used in hollowing out the trunks of trees to form canoes, and suggested that they were secured to their handles by strings tied round them in the same manner as the stone axes used in the South Sea Islands were fastened to theirs.

About the year 1816 the Rev. John Dow,[129] in some remarks on the ancient weapon denominated the celt, advocated the opinion that it was an axe, and probably a weapon of war. He also traces its connection with the stone celt, from which he considered it to have been developed.

About the same year the Rev. John Hodgson, secretary of the Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle-on-Tyne, communicated to that society a valuable memoir in the shape of “An Enquiry into the Æra when Brass was used in purposes to which Iron is now applied,”[130] of which mention has already been made in the Introductory Chapter. He thought that celts were tools which were well adapted for use as wedges for splitting wood, or that with wooden hafts they might be used as chisels for hollowing canoes and for similar purposes, some instruments found with them being undoubtedly gouges. As to their date, he thought that bronze began to give way to iron in Britain nearly as soon as it did in Greece, and that consequently the celts, &c., found in this island belonged to an era 500, or at least 400 years, b.c.

In 1839 Mr. Rickman[131] communicated to the Society of Antiquaries a paper on the Antiquity of Abury and Stonehenge, in the notes to which he propounds the theory that the socketed celts were used merely as chisels, with hafts of wood inserted in the socket. They could be then either held in the hand or by means of a withe, like a blacksmith’s chisel, while they were struck with a stone hammer.

Among writers of comparatively modern times, the first whom I have to mention is the late Mr. G. V. Du Noyer,[132] who in 1847 communicated to the Archæological Institute two papers on the classification of bronze celts, which are still of great value and interest. He traces the gradual development in form from the bronze celt shaped like a wedge to that which is socketed, and shows that an important element in the transition from one form to the other has been the method of hafting. He also enters into the subjects of the casting and ornamentation of celts; and as in subsequent pages I shall have to refer to these as well as to the methods of hafting, I content myself here with citing Mr. Du Noyer’s papers as being worthy of all credit.

In 1849 Mr. James Yates communicated a paper to the Archæological Institute of a far more speculative kind than those of Mr. Du Noyer, his object being to prove that among the various uses of bronze celts one of the most important was the application of them in destroying fortifications and entrenchments, in making roads and earthworks, and in similar military operations. He confines his inquiry, however, to those which were adapted to be fitted to straight wooden handles. Following in the steps of some of the older antiquaries, he appears to regard them as of Roman origin, and identifies them with the Roman dolabra, an instrument which he thinks was used as a chisel or a crowbar. In fact, he was persuaded that the celt was commonly used not as a hatchet, but as a spud or a crowbar. Had he but been acquainted with the ancient handles, such as have been discovered in the Austrian salt-mines and elsewhere, he would probably have come round to another opinion as to the ordinary method of hafting, though it is of course possible that in some instances these instruments may have been mounted and used as spuds. Had he practically tried mounting them and using them as crowbars, he would have found that with but slight strain the shafts would break or the celts become loosened upon them. And had he been better versed in archæology, he would have known that whatever was the form of the Roman dolabra, or whatever the uses for which it served, it can hardly have differed from their other implements in being made of bronze and not of iron; and he would have thought twice before engraving bronze celts from Cornwall and Furness as illustrations of the Roman dolabra in Smith’s “Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities.”

The ring or loop, which so often is found on the side of celts of the palstave and socketed forms, was thought by Mr. Yates to have been principally of use to assist in carrying them, a dozen or twenty perhaps being strung together, or a much smaller number tied to the soldier’s belt or girdle. He also thought that they might serve for the attachment of a thong or chain to draw the instrument out of a wall, should it become wedged among the stones in the process of destruction.

The next essay on celts and their classification which I must adduce was written by the late Rev. Thomas Hugo, F.S.A.,[133] who followed much the same system as Mr. Du Noyer, so far as the development of the socketed celt was concerned, though he differed from him with regard to the method of hafting, as he was persuaded that, in general, celts were mounted with a straight shaft, like spuds. He considered that the loop was not used for securing the celt to its haft, but for hanging it up at home when not in use, or for suspending it from the soldier’s girdle whilst on the march.

Mr. Hugo’s paper was followed by some supplementary remarks from Mr. Syer Cuming, who suggests that a thong may have passed through the loop by which the weapon might be propelled, and contends that socketed celts are neither chisels nor axe-blades, but the ferrules of spear-shafts, which might be fixed in the ground, or even used at times as offensive weapons.

The name of the late Mr. Thomas Wright[134] has already been mentioned. In his various works and papers he claims a Roman origin for bronze celts and swords, though admitting that they may occasionally have been made in the countries in which they are found.

Among other modern writers who have touched upon the subject of celts, I may mention that accomplished antiquary, the late Mr. Albert Way, F.S.A., whose remarks in connection with an exhibition of bronze antiquities at a meeting of the Archæological Institute in 1861[135] are well worth reading. I may also refer to the late Sir W. R. Wilde, in his “Catalogue of the Copper and Bronze Antiquities in the Museum of the Royal Irish Academy,” published in the same year; to Mr. Franks, in the “Horæ Ferales;” to Sir John Lubbock, in his “Prehistoric Times;” and to General A. Lane Fox (now Pitt-Rivers), in his excellent lecture on Primitive Warfare, section iii.[136]

Canon Greenwell, in his “British Barrows,”[137] has also devoted a few pages to the consideration of bronze celts and axe-heads, more especially in connection with interments in sepulchral mounds.

Foreign writers I need hardly cite, but I may mention a remarkable idea that has been promulgated by Professor Stefano de Rossi[138] as to celts having served as money, which has, however, been shown by Count Gozzadini to be unfounded.

In conclusion, I may also venture to refer to an address[139] which I delivered to the Society of Antiquaries on the occasion of an exhibition of bronze antiquities in their apartments in January, 1873.

In treating of the different forms of celts on the present occasion, I shall divide them into the following classes:—

Flat celts.

Flanged celts.

Winged celts and palstaves, with and without loops.

Socketed celts.

What are known as tanged celts may perhaps be more properly included under the head of chisels, to which class of tools it is not unlikely that some of the narrow celts of the other forms should be referred.

It is difficult to draw a hard and fast line between the flat celts and the flanged, and between these latter and the so-called palstaves. I propose, therefore, to include the flanged celts, which are not provided with a stop-ridge to prevent their being driven into their haft, in the same chapter with the flat celts, and to treat of those which have a stop-ridge in the same chapter as the palstaves, with and without a loop. In a subsequent chapter I shall speak as to the manner in which these instruments were probably hafted.

CHAPTER III.

FLAT AND FLANGED CELTS.

Flat celts, or those of simple form with the faces somewhat convex, and approximating in shape to the polished stone celts of the Neolithic Period, have been regarded by several antiquaries as being probably the earliest bronze implements or weapons. Such a view has much to commend it, but, as already observed, it may be doubted whether in the earliest times, when metal was scarce, it would be so readily applied to purposes for which much of the precious material was required, as to the manufacture of weapons or tools of a lighter kind, such as daggers or knives.

Among celts, however, the simple form, and that most nearly approaching in character to the stone hatchet, was probably the earliest, though it may have been continued in use after the introduction of the side flanges, the stop-ridge, and even the socket. Some celts of the simplest form found in Ireland are of copper, and have been thought to belong to the period when the use of stone for cutting purposes was dying out and that of metal coming in; but the mere fact of their being of copper is by no means conclusive on this point.

A copper celt of the precise shape of an ordinary stone celt, 6 inches long and 2½ inches wide, which was found in an Etruscan tomb, and is preserved in the Museum at Berlin, appears to have been cast in a mould formed upon a stone implement of the same class. It has been figured and described by Sir William Wilde.[140] I have not seen the implement, nor am I aware of the exact circumstances of the finding. Celts may, however, like the flint arrow-heads inserted in Etruscan[141] necklaces of gold, have been regarded with superstitious reverence, and it does not appear to me quite certain that this specimen was ever in actual use as an implement, and was not placed in the grave as a substitute for a stone hatchet or Ceraunius.

Fig. 1.—Cyprus. ½

However this may be, some of the earliest bronze or, possibly, copper celts with which we are acquainted, those from the excavations of General di Cesnola in Cyprus, and of Dr. Schliemann at Hissarlik, are of the simple flat form, and justify Sir W. Wilde[142] in his supposition that the first makers of these instruments, having once obtained a better material than stone, repeated the form with which they were best acquainted, though they economized the metal and lessened the bulk by flattening the sides. The annexed cut, Fig. 1, shows a celt from Cyprus in my own collection, which in form might be matched by celts of flint, though it must be acknowledged that the type in stone is rather that of Scandinavia than of Eastern Europe or the Levant. A slight ridge in the oxide upon it seems to mark the distance that the narrow end penetrated the handle. Numerous tools or weapons of the same form were found by Dr. Schliemann[143] in his excavations in search of Troy. They were at first thought to be of copper, but subsequently proved to have a small per-centage of tin in them. A number of flat celts, some short and broad, and others long and narrow, were found at Gungeria,[144] in the Mhow Talook, about forty miles north of Boorha, in Central India, many of which are now in the British Museum. On analysis Dr. Percy found them to be of pure copper. The same form was found at Tel Sifr, in Southern Babylonia. Some from that place, and from the island of Thermia,[145] in the Greek Archipelago, are also in the British Museum. Nearly similar instruments, said to be made of copper, have been found in Austria,[146] Denmark,[147] Sweden,[148] Hungary,[149] France,[150] and Italy.[151] I have one 3¾ inches long, from Royat, Puy de Dôme. A large and thicker specimen is in the Museum at Toulouse. They have usually a small per-centage, 0·15 to 2·08 of tin in them.[152]

I have already, in the Introductory Chapter, made some remarks on the probability of a copper age having, in some part of the world, preceded that of bronze, and need here only repeat that the occurrence of implements in copper, of the forms usually occurring in bronze, does not of necessity imply a want of acquaintance with the tin necessary to mix with copper to form bronze, but may only be significant of a temporary or local scarcity of the former metal. I may also add that without actual analysis, it is unsafe, from appearance only, to judge whether copper is pure, or whether it has not an appreciable per-centage of tin in it.

In treating of the different forms and characters of bronze celts, and of the places and circumstances of finding, I think it will be best first to take those from England and Wales, then those from Scotland, and lastly those from Ireland. I begin with those which have been found in barrows in England.

Fig. 2 represents a flat celt found in a barrow in the parish of Butterwick, in the East Riding of Yorkshire, by the Rev. Canon Greenwell, F.R.S., F.S.A.[153] It lay at the hips of the body of a young man, at whose right hand the knife-dagger (Fig. 279) and the bronze drill or pricker (Fig. 225) were found, accompanied by a flint knife formed from a broad external flake.

Fig. 2.—Butterwick. ½

In front of the chest were six buttons, five of jet and one of sandstone, two of which are figured in my “Ancient Stone Implements.”[154] The handle of the celt or axe-head could be plainly traced by means of a dark line of decayed wood, and to all appearance the weapon had been worn slung from the waist. “The blade is of the simplest form, modelled on the pattern of the stone axe, and may, it is probable, be regarded as the earliest type of bronze axe antecedently to the appearance of either flanges or socket. It is 4 inches long, 2⅜ inches wide at the cutting edge, and 1⅛ inches at the smaller end. It had evidently been fixed into a solid handle to a depth of 2 inches.”

A very similar discovery to that at Butterwick was made by the late Mr. Thomas Bateman in a barrow upon Parwich Moor, Derbyshire,[155] called Shuttlestone, opened by him in June, 1848. In this case a man of fine proportions and in the prime of life had been interred, surrounded by fern-leaves and enveloped in a hide with the hair inwards. Close to the head were a small flat bead of jet and a circular flint (probably a “scraper”). In contact with the left arm lay a bronze dagger, much like Fig. 279, with two rivets for the attachment of the handle, which had been of horn. About the middle of the left thigh was a bronze celt of the plainest axe-shaped type. The cutting edge was turned towards the upper part of the person, and the instrument itself had been inserted into a wooden shaft for about 2 inches at the narrow end. The celt and dagger are engraved in the Archæological Association Journal,[156] and the former in the Archæologia.[157] It is about 5½ inches long, and in form much like Fig. 19.

In a small barrow named Borther Low,[158] about two miles south of Middleton by Youlgrave, Mr. William Bateman discovered a skeleton with the remains of a plain coarse urn on the left side, a flint arrow-head much burnt, a pair of canine teeth of either a fox, or a dog of the same size, and a diminutive bronze celt. In the catalogue of the Bateman Museum[159] this is described as “of the most primitive type, closely resembling the stone celts in form,” and 2 inches only in length. It is there stated to have been found with a flint spear, but this seems to be a mistake for an arrow-head.[160]

Dr. Samuel Pegge,[161] in his letter to Mr. Lort already cited, mentions that “Mr. Adam Wolsey the younger, of Matlock in Derbyshire, has a celt found near the same place a.d. 1787, at Blakelow in the parish of Ashover, with a spear-head of flint, a military weapon also.” Not improbably this was an axe-head of the same class.

A celt of much the same character as Fig. 2, but in outline more nearly resembling Fig. 19, 4⅜ inches long and 2⅜ broad at the cutting edge, was found in company with two diadems or lunettes of gold such as the Irish antiquaries call “Minds,” at Harlyn, in the parish of Merryn, near Padstow, Cornwall, and is engraved in the Archæological Journal.[162] The objects were found at a depth of about six feet from the surface, and with them was another bronze article, which was unfortunately thrown away. This was described by the man at work on the spot as “like a bit of a buckle.” The discovery was quite accidental, and no notice seems to have been taken as to whether there were any traces of an interment at the spot, though the earth in contact with the articles is described as having been “of an artificial character.”

It is a celt of this kind which is engraved by Plot[163] as found near St. Bertram’s Well, Ilam, Staffordshire. He describes it as “somewhat like, only larger than, a lath-hammer at the edge end, but not so on the other,” and regards it as a Roman sacrificial axe.

One (4⅛ inches) was found on Bevere Island, Worcestershire.[164]

Others of the same kind have been found near Duxford, Cambs,[165] near Grappenhall, Cheshire;[166] the Beacon Hill, Charnwood Forest, Leicestershire;[167] and, near Battlefield, Shrewsbury,[168] in company with a palstave without loop, some sickle-like objects, and other articles. One, 9 inches long and 5 inches broad at the cutting edge, found in the ruins of Gleaston Castle, Lower Furness, Lancashire, is engraved in the Archæologia.[169]

The celts found on Baddow Hall Common,[170] near Danbury, Essex, one of which was 6 inches long and 3½ inches broad at the edge, seem to have been of this character.

I have seen specimens of the same type from Taxley Fen, Huntingdonshire (4¾ inches long), in the collection of Mr. S. Sharp, F.S.A.; and from Raisthorp, near Fimber, Yorkshire, in that of Messrs. Mortimer.

In Canon Greenwell’s collection are three (about 4¾ inches) found at Newbiggin, Northumberland, and others (about 5½ inches) from Alnwick and Wallsend. A specimen in the same collection (5¼ inches), found at Knapton, Yorkshire (E. R.), has a slight ridge along the centre of the sides, which, as well as the angles between the faces and the sides, is indented with a series of slight hammer marks at regular intervals.

Mr. Wallace of Distington, Whitehaven, has one (6½ inches) from Hango Hill, Castleton, Isle of Man.

I have myself celts of the same class from the Cambridge Fens (4⅝ inches); Sherburn Carr, Yorkshire (5⅝ inches), found with another nearly similar; Swansea (4¼ inches, much decayed); and near Pont Caradog, Brithder, Glamorganshire (6¼ inches), found with three others, and given to me by Canon Greenwell, F.R.S., in whose collection the others are preserved.

A few of these flat plain celts have been found in France. Some from the departments of Doubs and Jura are engraved by Chantre.[171] One from Normandy,[172] figured by the Abbé Cochet, seems to show some trace of a transverse ridge. One from the Seine is engraved in the “Dictionnaire Archéologique de la Gaule.” Another was found in Finistère.[173] Others are in the Museum at Narbonne[174] and elsewhere. The form is also found in Spain, both in bronze and what is apparently copper. I have specimens from the Ciudad Real district.

The plain flat form like Fig. 2 is also occasionally found in Germany. One from Ackenbach, near Homberg, is figured by Schreiber.[175]

With nearly straight sides like Fig. 27, the form is not uncommon in Hungary. Some of these are very thin.

Others of nearly the same form, but thicker, have been found on the other side of the Atlantic in Mexico, and many of the copper celts of North America are also of the plain flat type with an oblong section. This circumstance to my mind rather proves that the form is the simplest, and therefore that most naturally adopted for hatchets, than that there was of necessity any intercourse between the countries in which it has prevailed.

Many of the flat celts are ornamented in a more or less artistic manner on the faces, or the sides, or on both; but before proceeding to notice any of them, it will be well to mention another variety of the plain celt, in which the faces, instead of being nearly flat or uniformly convex, slope towards either end from a transverse ridge near the middle of the blade. This ridge is never very strongly defined, as the total thickness of the blade from ridge to ridge is rarely more than half an inch. The plain variety is somewhat rare in Britain, but one ornamented on both faces will be described, under Fig. 5, and an Irish example is shown in Fig. 35.

A large doubly tapering celt (8 inches) was found at East Surby, Rushen,[176] Isle of Man. Some of those already mentioned partake of this character. In Hoare’s great work a specimen from the Bush Barrow, Normanton,[177] is engraved as being of this plain doubly tapering type; but from the more accurate engraving given by Dr. Thurnam[178] it appears that this instrument has flanges at the side, like Fig. 8, and must therefore be spoken of later on.

Fig. 3.—Moot Low. ½

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]

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.

Fig. 5.—Weymouth. ½

The celt shown in Fig. 5 might perhaps be more properly placed among the flanged celts, as, without having well-developed flanges along the sides, there is a projecting ridge running along either margin of the faces, in consequence of the sides having been somewhat chamfered, or having had their angles beaten down by hammering. It was found on Preston Down, near Weymouth, Dorsetshire; but I do not know under what circumstances. It has become thickly coated with a dark sage-green patina, which has in places been unfortunately knocked off. The beautiful original ornamentation of the celt has been admirably preserved by the patina. The greater part of the surface has been figured with a sort of grained pattern like morocco leather, probably by means of a punch in form like a narrow blunt chisel. The faces of the blade are not flat, but taper in both directions from a ridge rather more than half-way up the blade. Along the lower side of this somewhat curved ridge, and again about an inch above the cutting edge, a belt of chevrons has been punched in, having the appearance of a plaited band. Below the lower band the surface has been left smooth and unornamented, so that grinding the edge would not in any way injure the pattern. The upper part of the blade has at the present time exactly the appearance of dark green morocco with “blind-tooling” upon it. No doubt many blades which were originally ornamented after the same fashion as this specimen have now, through oxidation or the accidental destruction of the patina, lost all traces of their original decoration. On this, where the patina has been destroyed, nothing can be seen of the graining.

I have a flat celt from Mildenhall, Suffolk (6 inches), in form like Fig. 6, the greater part of the surface of which has been grained in a similar manner, though the graining is now almost obliterated.

In the collection of the Duke of Northumberland[183] is a large celt which appears to be of the flat kind, with the side edges “slightly recurved,” and with the surface “elaborately worked with chevrony lines and ornaments which may have been partly produced by hammering.” It was found in Northumberland.

Another belonging to James Kendrick, Esq., M.D., found at Risdon,[184] near Warrington, is described as being “ornamented with punched lines in a very unusual manner.” Another, of which a bad representation from one of Dr. Stukeley’s drawings is given in the Archæologia, is said to have been found in the long barrow at Stonehenge.[185] One 4½ inches long, the faces ornamented with a number of longitudinal cuts, was found near Sidmouth.[186]

Fig. 6.—Read. ½

In some instances the faces of the celts have been wrought into a series of slightly hollowed facets. One such from Read, Lancashire, is in the British Museum, and is engraved as Fig. 6. The central space between the two series of ridges and also the margins of the faces are ornamented with shallow chevrons punched in. The sides have been hammered into three facets, and this has produced slight flanges at the margins of the faces. These facets are ornamented with diagonal lines. This celt was found with two others, apparently of the same kind, and is described and engraved in Whitaker’s “History of the Original Parish of Whalley.”[187] The author says that these instruments were from 9 to 12 inches long, and had a broad and narrow end, but had neither loops, grooves, nor any other contrivance by which they could be fixed in a shaft, or indeed applied to any known use. That in the British Museum was obtained by the late Mr. Charles Towneley. The two others were formerly in the collections of the Rev. Dr. Milles, P.S.A., and of Dr. Whitaker.

I now come to the flanged celts, or those which have projecting ledges along the greater part of each side of the faces, produced either by hammering the metal at the sides of the blades, or in the original casting. As has already been observed, some of the celts which have been described as belonging to the flat variety might, with almost equal propriety, have been classed as flanged celts, as the mere hammering of the sides with a view to render them smooth or to produce an ornament upon them “upsets” the metal, and produces a thickening along the margin which almost amounts to a flange.

In the celt shown in Fig. 7 the flanges are very slight, and are in all probability merely due to the hammering necessary to produce the kind of cable pattern or spiral fluting which is seen in the side view. The faces taper in each direction from a transverse ridge, and the blade for some distance below this is ornamented with an incuse chevron pattern. The blade towards the edge and above the ridge is left plain. This specimen was found in Suffolk, but I do not know the exact locality. It is in my own collection.

Fig. 7.—Suffolk. ½

Among nineteen bronze celts discovered about the year 1845 on the property of Mr. Samuel Ware, F.S.A., at Postlingford Hall,[188] near Clare, Suffolk, were several of this class, two of which (6½ and 5½ inches), now in the British Museum, are figured in the Archæologia. One of them is ornamented with a chevron pattern, covering the part of the blade usually decorated, and having vertical lines running through the centres of the chevrons, and through the junction of their bases. The other is ornamented with a series of curved parallel lines running across the blade, as on Fig. 16. They have a slight projection or ridge at the thickest part of the blade, as have also two that are not ornamented, which likewise were presented by Mr. Ware to the British Museum.

Another celt of this kind (4⅞ inches) was found with a bronze spear-head having loops at the lower part of the blade in the Kilcot Wood,[189] near Newent, Gloucestershire. The faces are ornamented with parallel rows of short diagonal lines, bounded at the lower end by a double series of dots, and a transverse row of diagonal lines.

In the remarkable hoard of bronze instruments discovered on Arreton Down, in the Isle of Wight, about the year 1735, were, besides the spear-heads and dagger blades, of which mention will be made in subsequent chapters, four of these flanged celts. Of these one (6⅞ inches) was ornamented both on the face and sides, but is at present only known from a drawing in an album belonging to the Society of Antiquaries.

Fig. 8.—Arreton Down. ½

The others were plain, and of one of them a woodcut is given in the Archæologia,[190] which by the permission of the Council of the Society of Antiquaries is here reproduced as Fig. 8. It is 8 inches in length, and is one of the largest of its class in the British Museum. As will be seen, the blade itself is of the doubly tapering kind. The others are 4½ and 4¾ inches long. They are said to have been found arranged in regular order,[191] and, as Mr. Franks has suggested, may possibly have been the store deposited by some ancient founder, which he was unable to reclaim from its hiding-place.

——Fig. 9.—Plymstock. ⅔————Fig. 10.—Plymstock. ⅔

In Figs. 9 and 10[192] are shown two more of these doubly tapering flanged celts, which were found in the parish of Plymstock,[193] Devonshire, about a mile east of Preston. They lay beneath a flat stone at a depth of about two feet below the surface, together with fourteen other celts, three daggers, one of which is given as Fig. 301, a spear-head or dagger, shown in Fig. 327, and a narrow chisel (Fig. 190). All the sixteen celts are of the same general type, but vary in length from 3¾ inches to 6¾ inches. The extent of the flanges or wings also varies, and in some they project considerably, and are brought with great precision to a sharp edge. At the narrow or butt end, the late Mr. Albert Way, who described the hoard, noticed a peculiar slight groove extending only as far as the commencement of the lateral flanges. The character of the groove is shown in the portion of the side view given with each figure. Mr. Way and Mr. Franks thought that the narrow end of the celt, when produced from the mould, had been slightly bifid, and that the little cleft had been closed by the hammer. My own impression is that these marks are merely the result of “drawing down” the narrow ends with the hammer after their sides had been somewhat “upset” or expanded by hammering out the side flanges.

The sides of some of these celts have been hammered so as to present three longitudinal facets; others have the sides simply rounded. One of the most interesting features of this discovery is its analogy with that already mentioned as having been made at Arreton Down. The greater number of the objects found at Plymstock were given by the Duke of Bedford to the British Museum, and the remainder to the Exeter Museum.

Four or five celts with slight side flanges were found in the Wiltshire barrows by Sir E. Colt Hoare. The largest of these (6¼ inches long and 2½ inches broad) was found in 1808, in a tumulus known as the Bush Barrow, near Normanton.[194] The following are the particulars of this discovery:—On the floor of the barrow was the skeleton of a tall man lying from south to north. Near his shoulders lay the celt, which owes its great preservation to having been inserted in a handle of wood. About eighteen inches south of the head were several bronze rivets, intermixed with wood and thin pieces of bronze, which were regarded as the remains of a shield. Near the right arm were a large dagger of bronze and a spear-head of the same metal, fully 13 inches long. The handle of this dagger, marvellously inlaid with pins of gold, will be described in a subsequent chapter. On the breast of the skeleton was a large lozenge-shaped plate of gold, ornamented with zigzag and other patterns, and near it were some other gold ornaments, some bone rings, and an oval perforated stone mace, the representation of which I have reproduced in my “Ancient Stone Implements.”

We have here an instance of bronze weapons occurring associated with those of stone and with gold ornaments. Sir R. Colt Hoare has recorded some other cases. In a bell-shaped barrow near Wilsford,[195] at the feet of the skeleton of a tall man, he found a massive hammer of a dark-coloured stone, some objects of bone, a whetstone with a groove in the centre, and a bronze celt with small lateral flanges 3¼ inches long. These were accompanied by a very curious object of twisted bronze, apparently a ring about 4½ inches in diameter, having a tang pierced with four rivet holes for fixing in a handle. In the ring itself, opposite the tang, is a long oval hole, through which passes one of three circular links forming a short chain.

In a barrow on Overton Hill,[196] Sir R. Colt Hoare found a contracted skeleton buried either in the trunk of a tree or on a plank of wood. Near the head were a small celt of this kind, an awl with a handle (Fig. 227), and a small dagger, or, as he terms it, a “lance-head.”

The occurrence of celts of this character is not limited to interments by inhumation. In another barrow of the Wilsford group Sir R. C. Hoare found, in a cist 2 feet deep, a pile of burnt bones, an ivory (?) pin, a rude ring of bone, and a small bronze celt, also with side flanges, and only 2⅛ inches long.

Among other specimens of this form of celt may be cited one found on Plumpton Plain,[197] near Lewes, Sussex, now in the British Museum; one (4 inches) found near Dover in 1856; and one (6½ inches) from Wye Down, Kent, both in the Mayer collection at Liverpool. Canon Greenwell, F.R.S., has one (3½ inches) from March, Cambridgeshire.

Flanged celts much like Fig. 9 have been found in France. Some from Haute-Saône,[198] Rhône, and Compiègne[199] (Oise) have been figured. I have specimens from Evreux (Eure), Amiens (Somme), and Lyons. The type also occurs in Italy[200] in some abundance; it is found more rarely in Germany.[201] Examples from Denmark are figured by Schreiber,[202] Segested,[203] and Madsen.[204] The form also occurs in Sweden.[205]

A peculiar form of flanged celt is shown in Fig. 11. The flanges extend as usual nearly to the edge, but at the upper part of the blade are set down so as to project still farther over the faces, though at a lower level. The original was found in the Thames,[206] and is the property of Mr. T. Layton, F.S.A.

————Fig. 11.—Thames. ½—————————Fig. 12.—Norfolk. ½

A small example, ornamented with a fluted pattern on the sides and with the blade slightly tapering in each direction from a central ridge, is shown in Fig. 12. The original was found in Norfolk, and is in the collection of Mr. R. Fitch, F.S.A.

Another, decorated with a fluted chevron pattern on the sides, and with indented herring-bone and chevron patterns on the faces, is given in Fig. 13. This example was found in Dorsetshire, and is now in the British Museum. In the same collection is a beautiful celt with side flanges found near Brough, Westmoreland (6¾ inches), which has the portion of the blade below the thickest part ornamented with a lozengy matted pattern much like that on Fig. 51, but with the alternate lozenges plain and hatched. The hatching on some of the lozenges is from left to right, on others the reverse.

Fig. 13.—Dorsetshire. ½——————Fig. 14.—Lewes. ½

A flanged celt of unusual type, the sides curiously wrought and engraved or punched, and the faces exhibiting a pattern of chevrony lines, is shown in Fig. 14. It was found near Lewes,[207] Sussex, and is the property of Sir H. Shiffner, Bart.

Fig. 15.—Ely. ½