To return to the implements made of flint. Those which I have next to describe have been termed spear-heads, lance-heads, knives, and daggers. Their ordinary length is from 5 to 7 inches, and their extreme width from11⁄2to21⁄2inches. Their general form is lanceolate, but the greater breadth is usually nearer the point of the blade than the butt, which is in most instances either truncated or rounded. They exhibit remarkable skill in the treatment of flint in their manufacture, being as a rule symmetrical in form, with the edge in one plane, and equally convex on the two faces—which are dexterously chipped into broad flat facets—while the edges are still more carefully shaped by secondary working. Towards the butt, the converging sides are usually nearly straight, and in many, the edge at this part has been rounded by grinding, and the butt-end has had its angles removed in a similar manner.{349}This may have been done either with the view of rendering the instrument more convenient for holding in the hand, or in order to prevent the blade from cutting the ligaments by which it was attached to a handle. For the latter purpose, however, there would be no advantage in rounding the butt-end; and as this, moreover, is frequently the thickest part of the blade, it seems probable that the majority of the instruments were intended for holding in the hand, so that the term dagger appears most appropriate to this form.
Other blades, with notches on the opposite sides, seem to have been mounted with handles or shafts, and may have served either as daggers or possibly as spear-heads.
I have figured four specimens showing some difference in shape, mainly in consequence of the different relative positions of the broadest part of the blades. This in Fig. 265 may be, to some extent, due to the point having been chipped away by successive sharpening of the edge by secondary chipping, in the same manner as we find some of the Danish daggers worn to a stump, by nearly the whole of the blade having been sharpened away.
Fig. 264.—Lambourn Down.1⁄2In Fig. 264 is shown a beautiful dagger of white flint, which was found in a barrow on Lambourn Down, Berks, in company with a celt and some exquisitely-finished stemmed and barbed arrow-heads of the same material. It is now in the British Museum. Its edges are sharp all along, and not blunted towards the butt-end. It may have been an entirely new weapon, buried with the occupant of the barrow for use in another state of existence, or it may have had moss wrapped round that part, so as to protect the hand; like the blade[1566]of flint withHypnum brevirostrewrapped round its butt-end to form a substitute for a handle, which was found in the bed of the River Bann, in Ireland. Some North American implements of similar character are, as Sir Wollaston Franks[1567]has pointed out, hafted by insertion into a split piece of wood in which{350}they are bound by a cord. One from the north-west coast, thus mounted, is in the British Museum.Professor Nilsson[1568]has engraved another American knife, in the same collection, but erroneously refers it to New Zealand.A good specimen(61⁄2inches) was found in 1890 in a field known as Little Wansford, near Great Weldon, Northamptonshire. I have specimens(61⁄4inches) from Fiskerton, Lincolnshire, and from Bottisham Fen, Cambs(45⁄8inches). There is a slight shoulder on the latter rather nearer the butt than the point. A beautiful specimen(63⁄4inches) from a barrow at Garton.[1569]Yorkshire, E. R., has been figured.Fig. 265.—Thames.1⁄2Fig. 266.—Burnt Fen.The blade shown in Fig. 265 is in the British Museum, having been formerly in the Roach Smith Collection. It is of nearly black flint, and was found in the Thames. Its length is still 7 inches, but from the form of the point it seems possible that it may, as already suggested, originally have been even longer. There is in the Museum another specimen from the Thames,[1570]53⁄4inches long, in form like Fig. 264. Both of these have the edges towards the butt rendered more or less blunt, and have had any prominences removed by grinding. The same is the case with a blade 6 inches long and23⁄8inches wide, found{351}in Quy Fen in 1849, and now in the Museum of the Cambridge Antiquarian Society. In the same collection is a smaller specimen,43⁄4inches long and15⁄8inches wide, from Burwell Fen. This has its edges sharp, and shows the natural crust of the flint at the butt, as does also one 7 inches long by21⁄2inches wide, found at Jackdaw Hill, near Cambridge.[1571]Another blade(53⁄8inches) found at Wolseys, near Dunmow, Essex, is in the British Museum. A blade of this type from a garden at Walton-on-Thames[1572]is recorded.A remarkably fine spear-head of the notched class,63⁄4inches long, was exhibited some years ago to the British Archæological Association, and theirProceedings,[1573]without giving any information as to the size, shape, or character of the specimen, record as an interesting fact that it weighs nearly four ounces. It was found in Burnt Fen, Prickwillow, Ely, and is now in my own collection. It is engraved as Fig. 266. It is of black flint, and has in the first instance been boldly chipped into approximately the requisite form, and then been carefully finished by neat secondary working at the edges, no part of which has been rounded by grinding. On either side, at rather less than half way along the blade from the base, are two deep rounded indentations not quite half an inch apart, in character much like the notches between the barbs and stems of one form of flint arrow-heads. The same peculiarity is to be observed in a somewhat smaller spear-head found at Carshalton,[1574]in Surrey, and forming part of the Meyrick Collection. Of this it is observed that it “was let into a slit in the wooden shaft, and bound over with nerves diagonally from the four notches which appear on the sides.” There can, I think, be little doubt of the correctness of this view, nor of the method of attachment to the shafts or handles having been much the same as that in use among the American tribes for their arrow-and lance-heads with a notch on either side. Whether the British blades were mounted with a short handle or a long shaft, we have no means of judging; but if those with the edges rounded towards the butt were knives or daggers, there seems some probability of these also having served the same purpose, though provided with handles like some North American and Mexican examples, and of their not having been spear-or lance-heads.I have another blade of this kind found in Burwell Fen, Cambridge, about53⁄4inches in length, and17⁄8inch in width. At about31⁄2inches from the point there is on either side a slight notch; beyond this there is a narrow projection, and then the width of the blade is suddenly reduced by a full eighth of an inch on either side, so as to leave a sort of shoulder. Between this and the butt, at intervals of about an inch, there are on each side two other notches, as if to assist in fastening the blade into a shaft or handle. There has in this case been no attempt to remove the edges by grinding.A flint dagger(63⁄8inches) found in the Thames,[1575]near London Bridge, has a notch on each side27⁄8inches from the base. A smaller notched example was found at Hurlingham.In the Christy Collection is another of these blades,53⁄8inches long,{352}with a notch on either side about13⁄4inches from the butt. It is uncertain where it was found.One with a notch at each side about mid-length was found at Hare Park,[1576]Cambridge.A blade remarkably like Fig. 266 was found in the Dolmen of Vinnac[1577](Aveyron).A beautifully formed blade, chipped square at the base, and with a series of notches along the sides towards the butt, was found at Arbor Low, Derbyshire.[1578]The late Mr. J. F. Lucas obligingly lent it to me for engraving, as Fig. 267. It is now preserved in the British Museum.Fig. 267.—Arbor Low.1⁄2In the Wiltshire Barrows, explored by Sir R. Colt Hoare, were several of these daggers. One,[1579]61⁄2inches long, was found with a skeleton beneath a large “sarsen stone” near Durrington Walls, in company with a small whetstone, a cone and ring of jet like a pulley, and two small discoidal scrapers. Another,[1580]of much the same form and size as Fig. 264, occurred in company with a drinking-cup, and what was probably a whetstone of “ligniformed asbestos,” at the feet of a skeleton in a barrow near Stonehenge.Others have been found in the barrows of Derbyshire and Yorkshire. In Green Low, on Alsop Moor,[1581]a dagger-blade of flint, 6 inches long, stemmed and barbed arrow-heads, a bone pin, and other bone instruments, were associated with a contracted interment. It was in this barrow also that the pyrites and scrapers, previously mentioned at p.313,were found. Another leaf-shaped dagger of white flint,41⁄2inches long, with the narrow half curiously serrated—as boldly as Fig. 266, but with many more notches—was found by Mr. Bateman beneath the head of a contracted skeleton in Nether Low,[1582]near Chelmorton. Another,41⁄4inches long, was found with burnt bones in one of the Three Lows,[1583]near Wetton. A flint dagger,[1584]elegantly chipped,51⁄4inches long, was found on Blake Low, near Matlock, in 1786. Fragments of similar daggers have been found with interments in barrows near Pickering;[1585]and in Messrs. Mortimer’s rich collection is a fine specimen from a barrow on the Yorkshire Wolds.One like Fig. 264, but of coarser workmanship,53⁄4inches long and23⁄8inches wide, was found in 1862, with a skeleton and an earthen vessel, at Norton, near Daventry, and particulars sent to me by the{353}late Mr. S. Sharp, F.S.A., F.G.S.; and what would appear to have been an instrument of the same character, 8 inches long, was found near Maidstone.[1586]A very good specimen, of fine workmanship, is in the Museum at Canterbury, but its place of finding is unknown.Another, more like Fig. 267, but not serrated,63⁄4inches long and 2 inches broad, was found with an urn at Ty ddu Llanelieu,[1587]Brecon, and has been engraved.In the Greenwell Collection is a blade like Fig. 264, 6 inches long and21⁄4inches wide, finely chipped along the edges for 4 inches from the point, which was found at Kempston, near Bedford, in the same field as that shown in Fig. 256. There is also a specimen rather more rudely chipped, and pointed at each end, from Irthington, Cumberland, which has more of the character of a spear-head. In the Fitch Collection is a fine but imperfect dagger from the neighbourhood of Ipswich, and I have one in similar condition from Peasemarsh, near Godalming.In Scotland one has been found in a cairn at Guthrie, Forfarshire,63⁄4inches long and11⁄2inches wide, which is engraved in theGentleman’s Magazine.[1588]Sir Daniel Wilson[1589]also mentions one 15 inches long, found in a cairn at Craigengelt, near Stirling, but I think there must be some error as to the length.Mr. J. W. Cursiter, of Kirkwall, has a very symmetrical blade like Fig. 264, but smaller, found in Blows Moss, South Ronaldsay, Orkney. A blade from Nunraw,[1590]Haddingtonshire(71⁄4inches) with notches at the side for hafting, has been engraved. Another(33⁄8inches), was found in a cairn near Kirkmichael, Ayrshire.[1591]Though occurring in so many parts of England and Scotland, these daggers appear to be unknown in Ireland, where, however, some large lozenge-shaped blades, ground on both faces, occur. Sword-like blades made of slaty stone are also found in Ireland[1592]and in Shetland.[1593]I have Irish specimens up to 15 inches in length, and have seen the sketch of one of subquadrate section, and pointed at each end,203⁄4inches in length. It was found in the Lower Bann, near Portglenone, co. Antrim.In some Continental countries, and especially in Denmark, Sweden, and Northern Germany, similar weapons are far more abundant than here. The shape is somewhat different, for the English specimens are as a rule broader in proportion, and more obtusely pointed than the Scandinavian. These latter frequently exhibit the blunting at the edges towards the butt-end, such as has been already mentioned. Occasionally they have the notches at the sides. Daggers with square or fish-tailed handles, like Worsaae, Nos. 52 and 53, some of which present delicately ornamented and crinkled edges, have not as yet been found in Britain, though somewhat analogous forms occur in Honduras and in North America. The crinkling is seen on some Egyptian knives.Nearly similar blades to those from Britain are found in other parts of Europe. Two lance-heads, made from flakes51⁄4inches and53⁄4inches long, more or less worked on both faces, and reduced in width at the{354}butt, so as to facilitate insertion in a handle, were found in the sepulchral cave of St. Jean d’Alcas,[1594]in the Aveyron. Another, worked on both faces, about 7 inches long and11⁄4inches broad, notched in two or three places on each side at the base, was found in one of the dolmens of the Lozère.[1595]A third, shorter and broader, but also notched at the base, was in the dolmen[1596]of Grailhe (Gard).A finely-worked, somewhat lozenge-shaped, blade of flint, 10 inches in length, was found at Spiennes,[1597]near Mons, in Belgium.A lance-head(63⁄4inches) from the Government of Vladimir,[1598]Russia, has been figured.A lance-head of flint, 9 inches long and21⁄8broad, tanged at the butt, and with a notch on each side of the tang, has been figured by Gastaldi[1599]from a specimen in the Museum at Naples, found at Telese.In Egypt, associated with other objects betokening a considerable civilization, have been found several thin blades of flint, of much the same character as the highly-finished European specimens. A magnificent lance-head(141⁄2inches) has been presented to the Ashmolean Museum by Prof. Flinders Petrie[1600]. It is delicately serrated along the edges for most of its length. A smaller blade is more leaf-shaped and minutely serrated all round. Another appears to have been hafted as a dagger. In my own collection is a leaf-shaped blade 7 inches long, most delicately made and serrated. Others are, however, thick at the back, and provided with a tang like a metallic knife. Two of these in the Berlin Museum,[1601]are71⁄4inches and63⁄4inches long respectively, and21⁄4inches and 2 inches wide; I have one51⁄8inches in length. There are other specimens in the Egyptian Museums at Leyden and Turin, and in the National Museum[1602]at Edinburgh. A larger blade, and even more closely resembling some of the Scandinavian lunate instruments in form, being leaf-shaped, but more curved on one edge than the other, is also in the Berlin Museum.[1603]It is 9 inches long and21⁄2inches wide. A curved scimitar-like knife from Egypt[1604]is figured, as is one with a notch on each side of the butt.[1605]Another blade, of ovate form, and without tang,23⁄4inches long and 1 inch wide, is preserved in the Mayer Collection in the Museum[1606]at Liverpool.Some other Egyptian blades will be subsequently mentioned.A dagger-blade of flint, still mounted in its original handle, is in the British Museum,[1607]and has already been described.Some of the dagger-blades in use in Mexico in ancient times were of{355}much the same character as these, being in some cases of flint, in others of obsidian. A beautiful blade of chalcedony, 8 inches long, found at Tezcuco, is in the Christy Collection, as well as another of chert; but the most remarkable is of chalcedony, still in its original wooden handle in form of a kneeling figure, encrusted with precious materials, including turquoise, malachite, and coral.[1608]An almost similar specimen was engraved by Aldrovandus.[1609]There are Japanese[1610]stone knives and daggers polished all over and with the blade and hilt in one piece. Some are as much as 15 inches long.Fig.267A.—Sewerby.1⁄2A peculiar form of knife, closely resembling in character some of the crescent-shaped blades from Scandinavia, is shown in Fig.267A.It was found in the parish of Sewerby,[1611]near Bridlington, and somewhat resembles the blade from Balveny, subsequently mentioned. I have described it in some detail[1611]elsewhere. A similar form occurs in Arctic America.[1612]A wider form from New Jersey[1613]has been regarded as a scalping-knife.Another form of curved knife—for as such it would seem the instrument must be regarded—seems to be more abundant in Britain than in other European countries, unless possibly in Russia. A somewhat similar form is known in Denmark,[1614]of which a highly finished variety is engraved by Worsaae[1615]from an almost, if not quite, unique example. Examples of analogous knives from other countries will also be subsequently cited. As the form has not hitherto received much attention from antiquaries, I have engraved three specimens slightly differing in character, and found in different parts of England.{356}Fig. 268 represents a beautifully formed knife, with a curved blade tapering to a point, and found in draining at Fimber, Yorkshire. It is preserved in the collection of Messrs. Mortimer, of Driffield, who have kindly allowed me to engrave it. It is about 7 inches in length, formed of flint, which has now become ochreous in colour, and exhibits a portion of the natural crust at the butt-end. The blade is nearly equally convex on the two faces, but thickens out at the butt, which seems to have formed the handle, as the side edges which are elsewhere sharp are there slightly blunted. The faces present no signs of having been ground or polished.Fig. 268.—Fimber.1⁄2Fig. 269.—Yarmouth.1⁄2I have two or three fragments of similar knives also from the Yorkshire Wolds; and one almost perfect, but only41⁄2inches long, from Ganton Wold. In the Greenwell Collection is a fragment of one from Wetwang, and the point of another from Rudstone. I have one (5 inches) perfect except at the butt, found at North Stow, Bury St. Edmunds.Fig. 269 represents a nearly similar knife, which has, however, been already described, though not figured, in theArchæological Journal[1616]and in theProceedings of the Society of Antiquaries.[1617]It was found on Corton Beach, midway between Yarmouth and Lowestoft, and belonged{357}to the late Mr. C. Cory, of Yarmouth, who kindly lent it to me for engraving. It has been suggested that it was fixed to a haft, possibly of stag’s horn or of wood, but there are noindiciæof this having been the case, though the side-edges are blunted towards the butt-end, where also remains a considerable portion of the crust of the long nodule of flint from which the instrument was chipped.For the loan of the original of Fig. 270 I am indebted to the late Mr. Caldecott, of Mead Street, near Eastbourne, near which place it was found. It is of grey flint, and presents the peculiarity of having one face partially polished by grinding, which extends to the point, but does not touch the edges, which, as in the other instances, are produced by chipping only. It is rather more convex on the polished face than on the other, and it appears probable that recourse was had to grinding in order to remove a hard projection of the flint which had been too refractory to be chipped off. As usual, there is a portion of the crust of the original flint visible at the butt, where also the side edges have been blunted, in this case by grinding. This instrument has already been described and figured.[1618]A curved knife(73⁄4inches) now in the British Museum, much like Fig. 270, was found at Grovehurst,[1619]near Milton, Kent.Fig. 270.—Eastbourne.1⁄2In the same museum is a beautifully-chipped knife,81⁄4inches long, without any traces of grinding, and of much the same form as this, but with the point more sharply curved. It was found in the Thames, at London, in 1868.One from Bexley, Kent, is in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, and another from the Thames at Greenwich in the Jermyn Street Museum.The Greenwell Collection contains an implement of this class, but of broader proportions, 4 inches long and13⁄4inches wide, with a portion of the natural crust of the flint left on the convex side, not far from the point. It is sharp at the base, which is semicircular, and the edge shows signs of wear. It was found on Heslerton Wold.A thinner form of curved knife(61⁄2inches), found at Balveny,[1620]Banffshire, has been figured.The point of what appears to have been a curved knife of this character was found in the Lake-dwelling of Bodmann.[1621]Some curved knives from one at Attersee[1622]have been engraved. A long flint knife from Majorca,[1623]nearly straight at the edge, but curved at the back, may also be mentioned.{358}Some curved knives of polished slate, about 5 inches long, notched at the base as if for suspension by means of a string, have been found in Norway. Small blades of chipped flint with a neck for the same purpose are not uncommon in Japan, and occur more rarely in Russia.[1624]In the Greenwell Collection is preserved a curved knife of slate sharpened on the concave side, found in Antrim.Curved knives of flint, as well as some of the crescent shape, have been found in Volhynia.[1625]I have seen flint knives in outline very like Fig. 240 in the museums at Cracow, Moscow, and Kiev. Some are highly polished by friction and may have served as sickles.It is difficult to assign any definite use to the British form of knife, but as the curvature is evidently intentional, and as probably it was more difficult to chip out such curved blades than it would have been to make them straight, there must have been some advantage resulting from the form. As both edges of the blade are sharp, it is hard to say whether the convex or concave edge was the principal object. But inasmuch as the convex edge might more readily be obtained, and that twice over, in a leaf-shaped blade, it appears that the concave edge was the desideratum. The blunting of the edges at the butt-end suggests the probability of the instruments having been held immediately in the hand without the intervention of any form of haft; and the view of the concave edge being the principal one is supported by the circumstance that in the short knife from Ganton Wold, already mentioned, a considerable portion of the crust of the round-ended nodule of flint from which it was made is left along the convex side at the butt-end, while on the opposite side the edge extends the whole length, so that it cannot be comfortably held in the hand except with that edge outwards from the palm. It seems, indeed, adapted for holding in the hand and cutting towards rather than from the operator; and looking at the form universally adopted for reaping instruments, which seem to require a concave edge, so as to gather within them all the stalks that have to be cut, I am inclined to think that these curved flint knives may not impossibly have supplied the place of sickles or reaping hooks, whether for cutting grass to serve as provender or bedding, or for removing the ears of corn from the straw. We know that amongst the inhabitants of the Swiss Lake-dwellings some who were unacquainted with the use of metals had already several domesticated animals, and cultivated more than one kind of cereal, and it is not unfair to infer that the same was the case in Britain. It has already been suggested that some serrated flint flakes may have served for the armature of another form of sickle, like that in use in Egypt at an early period.The analogy in form between these flint blades and those of the bronze reaping-hooks occasionally found in Britain is striking, when we leave the sockets by which the latter were secured to their handles out of view. These also have usually the outer edge sharp as well as the inner, but for what purpose I cannot say.This seems a fitting place to say a few words with regard to some{359}Egyptian flint knives, for the knowledge of which we are mainly indebted to Prof. Flinders Petrie, and the workmanship of which is absolutely unrivalled. They are of two kinds, both presenting an outline curved on one or both sides. For the one kind a flake from 8 to 9 inches long of triangular section with a thick back and sharp edge has been taken: the back has been most carefully retouched and left slightly convex: the ridge of the flake has been wrought so as to show a crinkled line like that on the handles of some Danish daggers, the edge has been more or less re-worked, producing a bold convex sweep, and what was originally the inner face of the flake has first been delicately fluted by cross-flaking and then still more finely retouched along both the back and the edge.For the other kind the whole surface of the original flake has, as Mr. Spurrell[1626]has pointed out, been carefully ground, one face being made rather more convex that the other. The flatter face has been left almost untouched, but one side has been trimmed by flaking at the edge into almost a straight or slightly concave line: the other side is boldly curved, the general outline having been produced during the grinding process. The more convex face has been fluted or “ripple-marked” by cross-flaking from either side in the most skilful manner, the whole of the original polished surface being sometimes removed. The projections at the butt-end between the successive flakes have next been levelled down by secondary chipping, and finally the curved edge has been minutely serrated, there being about 36 teeth to the inch. These blades are from 7 to91⁄4inches in length, and occasionally made of beautiful chalcedonic flint. They are attributed by Professor Flinders Petrie[1627]to a period between the fourth and the twelfth Dynasty, but may possibly be of even earlier date. As already mentioned, some beautiful leaf-shaped lance-heads with finely-serrated edges have been made in the same manner.One of the fluted knives in the Ghizeh Museum[1628]is hafted for a distance of about 4 inches in a thin plate of gold, engraved on the one face with well-drawn figures of animals, and on the other with floral ornaments arranged between two serpents. The plates of gold are not soldered together, but sewn one to the other with gold wire.
Fig. 264.—Lambourn Down.1⁄2
Fig. 264.—Lambourn Down.1⁄2
In Fig. 264 is shown a beautiful dagger of white flint, which was found in a barrow on Lambourn Down, Berks, in company with a celt and some exquisitely-finished stemmed and barbed arrow-heads of the same material. It is now in the British Museum. Its edges are sharp all along, and not blunted towards the butt-end. It may have been an entirely new weapon, buried with the occupant of the barrow for use in another state of existence, or it may have had moss wrapped round that part, so as to protect the hand; like the blade[1566]of flint withHypnum brevirostrewrapped round its butt-end to form a substitute for a handle, which was found in the bed of the River Bann, in Ireland. Some North American implements of similar character are, as Sir Wollaston Franks[1567]has pointed out, hafted by insertion into a split piece of wood in which{350}they are bound by a cord. One from the north-west coast, thus mounted, is in the British Museum.
Professor Nilsson[1568]has engraved another American knife, in the same collection, but erroneously refers it to New Zealand.
A good specimen(61⁄2inches) was found in 1890 in a field known as Little Wansford, near Great Weldon, Northamptonshire. I have specimens(61⁄4inches) from Fiskerton, Lincolnshire, and from Bottisham Fen, Cambs(45⁄8inches). There is a slight shoulder on the latter rather nearer the butt than the point. A beautiful specimen(63⁄4inches) from a barrow at Garton.[1569]Yorkshire, E. R., has been figured.
Fig. 265.—Thames.1⁄2Fig. 266.—Burnt Fen.
Fig. 265.—Thames.1⁄2Fig. 266.—Burnt Fen.
Fig. 265.—Thames.1⁄2Fig. 266.—Burnt Fen.
Fig. 265.—Thames.1⁄2Fig. 266.—Burnt Fen.
Fig. 265.—Thames.1⁄2
Fig. 266.—Burnt Fen.
The blade shown in Fig. 265 is in the British Museum, having been formerly in the Roach Smith Collection. It is of nearly black flint, and was found in the Thames. Its length is still 7 inches, but from the form of the point it seems possible that it may, as already suggested, originally have been even longer. There is in the Museum another specimen from the Thames,[1570]53⁄4inches long, in form like Fig. 264. Both of these have the edges towards the butt rendered more or less blunt, and have had any prominences removed by grinding. The same is the case with a blade 6 inches long and23⁄8inches wide, found{351}in Quy Fen in 1849, and now in the Museum of the Cambridge Antiquarian Society. In the same collection is a smaller specimen,43⁄4inches long and15⁄8inches wide, from Burwell Fen. This has its edges sharp, and shows the natural crust of the flint at the butt, as does also one 7 inches long by21⁄2inches wide, found at Jackdaw Hill, near Cambridge.[1571]Another blade(53⁄8inches) found at Wolseys, near Dunmow, Essex, is in the British Museum. A blade of this type from a garden at Walton-on-Thames[1572]is recorded.
A remarkably fine spear-head of the notched class,63⁄4inches long, was exhibited some years ago to the British Archæological Association, and theirProceedings,[1573]without giving any information as to the size, shape, or character of the specimen, record as an interesting fact that it weighs nearly four ounces. It was found in Burnt Fen, Prickwillow, Ely, and is now in my own collection. It is engraved as Fig. 266. It is of black flint, and has in the first instance been boldly chipped into approximately the requisite form, and then been carefully finished by neat secondary working at the edges, no part of which has been rounded by grinding. On either side, at rather less than half way along the blade from the base, are two deep rounded indentations not quite half an inch apart, in character much like the notches between the barbs and stems of one form of flint arrow-heads. The same peculiarity is to be observed in a somewhat smaller spear-head found at Carshalton,[1574]in Surrey, and forming part of the Meyrick Collection. Of this it is observed that it “was let into a slit in the wooden shaft, and bound over with nerves diagonally from the four notches which appear on the sides.” There can, I think, be little doubt of the correctness of this view, nor of the method of attachment to the shafts or handles having been much the same as that in use among the American tribes for their arrow-and lance-heads with a notch on either side. Whether the British blades were mounted with a short handle or a long shaft, we have no means of judging; but if those with the edges rounded towards the butt were knives or daggers, there seems some probability of these also having served the same purpose, though provided with handles like some North American and Mexican examples, and of their not having been spear-or lance-heads.
I have another blade of this kind found in Burwell Fen, Cambridge, about53⁄4inches in length, and17⁄8inch in width. At about31⁄2inches from the point there is on either side a slight notch; beyond this there is a narrow projection, and then the width of the blade is suddenly reduced by a full eighth of an inch on either side, so as to leave a sort of shoulder. Between this and the butt, at intervals of about an inch, there are on each side two other notches, as if to assist in fastening the blade into a shaft or handle. There has in this case been no attempt to remove the edges by grinding.
A flint dagger(63⁄8inches) found in the Thames,[1575]near London Bridge, has a notch on each side27⁄8inches from the base. A smaller notched example was found at Hurlingham.
In the Christy Collection is another of these blades,53⁄8inches long,{352}with a notch on either side about13⁄4inches from the butt. It is uncertain where it was found.
One with a notch at each side about mid-length was found at Hare Park,[1576]Cambridge.
A blade remarkably like Fig. 266 was found in the Dolmen of Vinnac[1577](Aveyron).
A beautifully formed blade, chipped square at the base, and with a series of notches along the sides towards the butt, was found at Arbor Low, Derbyshire.[1578]The late Mr. J. F. Lucas obligingly lent it to me for engraving, as Fig. 267. It is now preserved in the British Museum.
Fig. 267.—Arbor Low.1⁄2
Fig. 267.—Arbor Low.1⁄2
In the Wiltshire Barrows, explored by Sir R. Colt Hoare, were several of these daggers. One,[1579]61⁄2inches long, was found with a skeleton beneath a large “sarsen stone” near Durrington Walls, in company with a small whetstone, a cone and ring of jet like a pulley, and two small discoidal scrapers. Another,[1580]of much the same form and size as Fig. 264, occurred in company with a drinking-cup, and what was probably a whetstone of “ligniformed asbestos,” at the feet of a skeleton in a barrow near Stonehenge.
Others have been found in the barrows of Derbyshire and Yorkshire. In Green Low, on Alsop Moor,[1581]a dagger-blade of flint, 6 inches long, stemmed and barbed arrow-heads, a bone pin, and other bone instruments, were associated with a contracted interment. It was in this barrow also that the pyrites and scrapers, previously mentioned at p.313,were found. Another leaf-shaped dagger of white flint,41⁄2inches long, with the narrow half curiously serrated—as boldly as Fig. 266, but with many more notches—was found by Mr. Bateman beneath the head of a contracted skeleton in Nether Low,[1582]near Chelmorton. Another,41⁄4inches long, was found with burnt bones in one of the Three Lows,[1583]near Wetton. A flint dagger,[1584]elegantly chipped,51⁄4inches long, was found on Blake Low, near Matlock, in 1786. Fragments of similar daggers have been found with interments in barrows near Pickering;[1585]and in Messrs. Mortimer’s rich collection is a fine specimen from a barrow on the Yorkshire Wolds.
One like Fig. 264, but of coarser workmanship,53⁄4inches long and23⁄8inches wide, was found in 1862, with a skeleton and an earthen vessel, at Norton, near Daventry, and particulars sent to me by the{353}late Mr. S. Sharp, F.S.A., F.G.S.; and what would appear to have been an instrument of the same character, 8 inches long, was found near Maidstone.[1586]A very good specimen, of fine workmanship, is in the Museum at Canterbury, but its place of finding is unknown.
Another, more like Fig. 267, but not serrated,63⁄4inches long and 2 inches broad, was found with an urn at Ty ddu Llanelieu,[1587]Brecon, and has been engraved.
In the Greenwell Collection is a blade like Fig. 264, 6 inches long and21⁄4inches wide, finely chipped along the edges for 4 inches from the point, which was found at Kempston, near Bedford, in the same field as that shown in Fig. 256. There is also a specimen rather more rudely chipped, and pointed at each end, from Irthington, Cumberland, which has more of the character of a spear-head. In the Fitch Collection is a fine but imperfect dagger from the neighbourhood of Ipswich, and I have one in similar condition from Peasemarsh, near Godalming.
In Scotland one has been found in a cairn at Guthrie, Forfarshire,63⁄4inches long and11⁄2inches wide, which is engraved in theGentleman’s Magazine.[1588]Sir Daniel Wilson[1589]also mentions one 15 inches long, found in a cairn at Craigengelt, near Stirling, but I think there must be some error as to the length.
Mr. J. W. Cursiter, of Kirkwall, has a very symmetrical blade like Fig. 264, but smaller, found in Blows Moss, South Ronaldsay, Orkney. A blade from Nunraw,[1590]Haddingtonshire(71⁄4inches) with notches at the side for hafting, has been engraved. Another(33⁄8inches), was found in a cairn near Kirkmichael, Ayrshire.[1591]
Though occurring in so many parts of England and Scotland, these daggers appear to be unknown in Ireland, where, however, some large lozenge-shaped blades, ground on both faces, occur. Sword-like blades made of slaty stone are also found in Ireland[1592]and in Shetland.[1593]I have Irish specimens up to 15 inches in length, and have seen the sketch of one of subquadrate section, and pointed at each end,203⁄4inches in length. It was found in the Lower Bann, near Portglenone, co. Antrim.
In some Continental countries, and especially in Denmark, Sweden, and Northern Germany, similar weapons are far more abundant than here. The shape is somewhat different, for the English specimens are as a rule broader in proportion, and more obtusely pointed than the Scandinavian. These latter frequently exhibit the blunting at the edges towards the butt-end, such as has been already mentioned. Occasionally they have the notches at the sides. Daggers with square or fish-tailed handles, like Worsaae, Nos. 52 and 53, some of which present delicately ornamented and crinkled edges, have not as yet been found in Britain, though somewhat analogous forms occur in Honduras and in North America. The crinkling is seen on some Egyptian knives.
Nearly similar blades to those from Britain are found in other parts of Europe. Two lance-heads, made from flakes51⁄4inches and53⁄4inches long, more or less worked on both faces, and reduced in width at the{354}butt, so as to facilitate insertion in a handle, were found in the sepulchral cave of St. Jean d’Alcas,[1594]in the Aveyron. Another, worked on both faces, about 7 inches long and11⁄4inches broad, notched in two or three places on each side at the base, was found in one of the dolmens of the Lozère.[1595]A third, shorter and broader, but also notched at the base, was in the dolmen[1596]of Grailhe (Gard).
A finely-worked, somewhat lozenge-shaped, blade of flint, 10 inches in length, was found at Spiennes,[1597]near Mons, in Belgium.
A lance-head(63⁄4inches) from the Government of Vladimir,[1598]Russia, has been figured.
A lance-head of flint, 9 inches long and21⁄8broad, tanged at the butt, and with a notch on each side of the tang, has been figured by Gastaldi[1599]from a specimen in the Museum at Naples, found at Telese.
In Egypt, associated with other objects betokening a considerable civilization, have been found several thin blades of flint, of much the same character as the highly-finished European specimens. A magnificent lance-head(141⁄2inches) has been presented to the Ashmolean Museum by Prof. Flinders Petrie[1600]. It is delicately serrated along the edges for most of its length. A smaller blade is more leaf-shaped and minutely serrated all round. Another appears to have been hafted as a dagger. In my own collection is a leaf-shaped blade 7 inches long, most delicately made and serrated. Others are, however, thick at the back, and provided with a tang like a metallic knife. Two of these in the Berlin Museum,[1601]are71⁄4inches and63⁄4inches long respectively, and21⁄4inches and 2 inches wide; I have one51⁄8inches in length. There are other specimens in the Egyptian Museums at Leyden and Turin, and in the National Museum[1602]at Edinburgh. A larger blade, and even more closely resembling some of the Scandinavian lunate instruments in form, being leaf-shaped, but more curved on one edge than the other, is also in the Berlin Museum.[1603]It is 9 inches long and21⁄2inches wide. A curved scimitar-like knife from Egypt[1604]is figured, as is one with a notch on each side of the butt.[1605]Another blade, of ovate form, and without tang,23⁄4inches long and 1 inch wide, is preserved in the Mayer Collection in the Museum[1606]at Liverpool.
Some other Egyptian blades will be subsequently mentioned.
A dagger-blade of flint, still mounted in its original handle, is in the British Museum,[1607]and has already been described.
Some of the dagger-blades in use in Mexico in ancient times were of{355}much the same character as these, being in some cases of flint, in others of obsidian. A beautiful blade of chalcedony, 8 inches long, found at Tezcuco, is in the Christy Collection, as well as another of chert; but the most remarkable is of chalcedony, still in its original wooden handle in form of a kneeling figure, encrusted with precious materials, including turquoise, malachite, and coral.[1608]An almost similar specimen was engraved by Aldrovandus.[1609]
There are Japanese[1610]stone knives and daggers polished all over and with the blade and hilt in one piece. Some are as much as 15 inches long.
Fig.267A.—Sewerby.1⁄2
Fig.267A.—Sewerby.1⁄2
A peculiar form of knife, closely resembling in character some of the crescent-shaped blades from Scandinavia, is shown in Fig.267A.It was found in the parish of Sewerby,[1611]near Bridlington, and somewhat resembles the blade from Balveny, subsequently mentioned. I have described it in some detail[1611]elsewhere. A similar form occurs in Arctic America.[1612]A wider form from New Jersey[1613]has been regarded as a scalping-knife.
Another form of curved knife—for as such it would seem the instrument must be regarded—seems to be more abundant in Britain than in other European countries, unless possibly in Russia. A somewhat similar form is known in Denmark,[1614]of which a highly finished variety is engraved by Worsaae[1615]from an almost, if not quite, unique example. Examples of analogous knives from other countries will also be subsequently cited. As the form has not hitherto received much attention from antiquaries, I have engraved three specimens slightly differing in character, and found in different parts of England.{356}
Fig. 268 represents a beautifully formed knife, with a curved blade tapering to a point, and found in draining at Fimber, Yorkshire. It is preserved in the collection of Messrs. Mortimer, of Driffield, who have kindly allowed me to engrave it. It is about 7 inches in length, formed of flint, which has now become ochreous in colour, and exhibits a portion of the natural crust at the butt-end. The blade is nearly equally convex on the two faces, but thickens out at the butt, which seems to have formed the handle, as the side edges which are elsewhere sharp are there slightly blunted. The faces present no signs of having been ground or polished.
Fig. 268.—Fimber.1⁄2Fig. 269.—Yarmouth.1⁄2
Fig. 268.—Fimber.1⁄2Fig. 269.—Yarmouth.1⁄2
Fig. 268.—Fimber.1⁄2Fig. 269.—Yarmouth.1⁄2
Fig. 268.—Fimber.1⁄2Fig. 269.—Yarmouth.1⁄2
Fig. 268.—Fimber.1⁄2
Fig. 269.—Yarmouth.1⁄2
I have two or three fragments of similar knives also from the Yorkshire Wolds; and one almost perfect, but only41⁄2inches long, from Ganton Wold. In the Greenwell Collection is a fragment of one from Wetwang, and the point of another from Rudstone. I have one (5 inches) perfect except at the butt, found at North Stow, Bury St. Edmunds.
Fig. 269 represents a nearly similar knife, which has, however, been already described, though not figured, in theArchæological Journal[1616]and in theProceedings of the Society of Antiquaries.[1617]It was found on Corton Beach, midway between Yarmouth and Lowestoft, and belonged{357}to the late Mr. C. Cory, of Yarmouth, who kindly lent it to me for engraving. It has been suggested that it was fixed to a haft, possibly of stag’s horn or of wood, but there are noindiciæof this having been the case, though the side-edges are blunted towards the butt-end, where also remains a considerable portion of the crust of the long nodule of flint from which the instrument was chipped.
For the loan of the original of Fig. 270 I am indebted to the late Mr. Caldecott, of Mead Street, near Eastbourne, near which place it was found. It is of grey flint, and presents the peculiarity of having one face partially polished by grinding, which extends to the point, but does not touch the edges, which, as in the other instances, are produced by chipping only. It is rather more convex on the polished face than on the other, and it appears probable that recourse was had to grinding in order to remove a hard projection of the flint which had been too refractory to be chipped off. As usual, there is a portion of the crust of the original flint visible at the butt, where also the side edges have been blunted, in this case by grinding. This instrument has already been described and figured.[1618]
A curved knife(73⁄4inches) now in the British Museum, much like Fig. 270, was found at Grovehurst,[1619]near Milton, Kent.
Fig. 270.—Eastbourne.1⁄2
Fig. 270.—Eastbourne.1⁄2
In the same museum is a beautifully-chipped knife,81⁄4inches long, without any traces of grinding, and of much the same form as this, but with the point more sharply curved. It was found in the Thames, at London, in 1868.
One from Bexley, Kent, is in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, and another from the Thames at Greenwich in the Jermyn Street Museum.
The Greenwell Collection contains an implement of this class, but of broader proportions, 4 inches long and13⁄4inches wide, with a portion of the natural crust of the flint left on the convex side, not far from the point. It is sharp at the base, which is semicircular, and the edge shows signs of wear. It was found on Heslerton Wold.
A thinner form of curved knife(61⁄2inches), found at Balveny,[1620]Banffshire, has been figured.
The point of what appears to have been a curved knife of this character was found in the Lake-dwelling of Bodmann.[1621]Some curved knives from one at Attersee[1622]have been engraved. A long flint knife from Majorca,[1623]nearly straight at the edge, but curved at the back, may also be mentioned.{358}
Some curved knives of polished slate, about 5 inches long, notched at the base as if for suspension by means of a string, have been found in Norway. Small blades of chipped flint with a neck for the same purpose are not uncommon in Japan, and occur more rarely in Russia.[1624]In the Greenwell Collection is preserved a curved knife of slate sharpened on the concave side, found in Antrim.
Curved knives of flint, as well as some of the crescent shape, have been found in Volhynia.[1625]
I have seen flint knives in outline very like Fig. 240 in the museums at Cracow, Moscow, and Kiev. Some are highly polished by friction and may have served as sickles.
It is difficult to assign any definite use to the British form of knife, but as the curvature is evidently intentional, and as probably it was more difficult to chip out such curved blades than it would have been to make them straight, there must have been some advantage resulting from the form. As both edges of the blade are sharp, it is hard to say whether the convex or concave edge was the principal object. But inasmuch as the convex edge might more readily be obtained, and that twice over, in a leaf-shaped blade, it appears that the concave edge was the desideratum. The blunting of the edges at the butt-end suggests the probability of the instruments having been held immediately in the hand without the intervention of any form of haft; and the view of the concave edge being the principal one is supported by the circumstance that in the short knife from Ganton Wold, already mentioned, a considerable portion of the crust of the round-ended nodule of flint from which it was made is left along the convex side at the butt-end, while on the opposite side the edge extends the whole length, so that it cannot be comfortably held in the hand except with that edge outwards from the palm. It seems, indeed, adapted for holding in the hand and cutting towards rather than from the operator; and looking at the form universally adopted for reaping instruments, which seem to require a concave edge, so as to gather within them all the stalks that have to be cut, I am inclined to think that these curved flint knives may not impossibly have supplied the place of sickles or reaping hooks, whether for cutting grass to serve as provender or bedding, or for removing the ears of corn from the straw. We know that amongst the inhabitants of the Swiss Lake-dwellings some who were unacquainted with the use of metals had already several domesticated animals, and cultivated more than one kind of cereal, and it is not unfair to infer that the same was the case in Britain. It has already been suggested that some serrated flint flakes may have served for the armature of another form of sickle, like that in use in Egypt at an early period.
The analogy in form between these flint blades and those of the bronze reaping-hooks occasionally found in Britain is striking, when we leave the sockets by which the latter were secured to their handles out of view. These also have usually the outer edge sharp as well as the inner, but for what purpose I cannot say.
This seems a fitting place to say a few words with regard to some{359}Egyptian flint knives, for the knowledge of which we are mainly indebted to Prof. Flinders Petrie, and the workmanship of which is absolutely unrivalled. They are of two kinds, both presenting an outline curved on one or both sides. For the one kind a flake from 8 to 9 inches long of triangular section with a thick back and sharp edge has been taken: the back has been most carefully retouched and left slightly convex: the ridge of the flake has been wrought so as to show a crinkled line like that on the handles of some Danish daggers, the edge has been more or less re-worked, producing a bold convex sweep, and what was originally the inner face of the flake has first been delicately fluted by cross-flaking and then still more finely retouched along both the back and the edge.
For the other kind the whole surface of the original flake has, as Mr. Spurrell[1626]has pointed out, been carefully ground, one face being made rather more convex that the other. The flatter face has been left almost untouched, but one side has been trimmed by flaking at the edge into almost a straight or slightly concave line: the other side is boldly curved, the general outline having been produced during the grinding process. The more convex face has been fluted or “ripple-marked” by cross-flaking from either side in the most skilful manner, the whole of the original polished surface being sometimes removed. The projections at the butt-end between the successive flakes have next been levelled down by secondary chipping, and finally the curved edge has been minutely serrated, there being about 36 teeth to the inch. These blades are from 7 to91⁄4inches in length, and occasionally made of beautiful chalcedonic flint. They are attributed by Professor Flinders Petrie[1627]to a period between the fourth and the twelfth Dynasty, but may possibly be of even earlier date. As already mentioned, some beautiful leaf-shaped lance-heads with finely-serrated edges have been made in the same manner.
One of the fluted knives in the Ghizeh Museum[1628]is hafted for a distance of about 4 inches in a thin plate of gold, engraved on the one face with well-drawn figures of animals, and on the other with floral ornaments arranged between two serpents. The plates of gold are not soldered together, but sewn one to the other with gold wire.