Page:The Ancient Stone Implements (1897).djvu/105

Rh Fig. 29 also forms part of the Greenwell Collection, and presents a very remarkable form, which, at first sight, has the appearance of being a chisel or hatchet, with a large tang, intended for insertion in a socket. The lower part is symmetrically chipped, like the cutting end of a narrow celt, with sharp sides, such as Fig. 26; but at a point a little more than half way along the blade, it rapidly expands, so as to have an almost circular section. Much as I am tempted to regard this as presenting a special type, I am almost convinced that the form is due rather to accident than design. It appears to me, that a piece of flint, partially chipped into shape for a larger and thicker celt, had been broken in the process of manufacture, and a second attempt had been made to convert it into a celt, this time of smaller size. The lower part of this was successfully chipped out, but on arriving at that portion of the blade where the section was nearly circular, the flint was either so refractory, or the projections on which blows could be administered to detach splinters were so small, that the manufacture was abandoned, not, however, before many blows had been fruitlessly struck, as the sides and projections of the face of the celt at this part are considerably battered.

Dr. C. B. Plowright has described a number of rough-hewn instruments of flint from what seems to have been the site of an ancient flint manufactory on Massingham Heath, in West Norfolk. He has figured several, including a wedge-formed implement like Fig. 28, and one of shoe-shape, not unlike a palæolithic form.

An interesting instance of the discovery of a flint celt, merely chipped out, but associated with polished celts, and other objects, is that recorded in the Archæologia and Hoare's "Wiltshire." In a barrow opened by Mr. W. Cunnington, in 1802, was a grave of oval form, containing a large skeleton lying on its back, and slightly on one side, and above it a smaller skeleton in a contracted posture. At the feet of the larger skeleton were more than three dozen perforated pins and other instruments of bone, and three celts of white flint, two of which were neatly polished, with a fine circular edge; and the third was "only chipped to the intended form and size." With these lay what was apparently a grinding stone to polish the celts or similar implements; and some grooved sandstones, like Fig. 185. About the legs were several boars' teeth perforated, and some cups made of hollow flints; near the breast was a flat circular stone, and a perforated stone axe, shown in Fig. 141, and two dozen more of the bone instruments. Some jet or cannel-coal beads and a ring of the same substance were also