48 



INTRODUCTION. 



upon the model of the earlier stone axe \ It has neither flanges 

 at the side like fig. 42, nor a socket at the end like fig. 43, 

 and seems to have been hafted by inserting the smaller end into 

 a club-like handle of wood \ The simplicity of the form, and 

 the resemblance it bears to the stone axe, both make it probable that 



Fig. 42. 



Fig. 43. 



it is the earliest type of the bronze axe'. Now this form of axe 

 is never found with swords, spear-heads, &c. in the various hoards 

 of bronze articles, which have been so frequently discovered ; the 

 axe in use at the same time with them, and occurring with them 

 in these finds, is the flanged axe (paalstab), and more commonly the 



* An analogue may be found in the baluster shafts and other ' stone carf entry * 

 of pre-Conquest churches, no doubt copied from buildings of wood ; and also in some 

 of the iron bridges of our own day, where the stone bridge has served as a model. 



^ The axe found at Butterwick [No. xxxix] shows, upon the oxidised surface, the 

 exact place at which the handle terminated, about one-third of the length from the 

 narrower end. These axes may also have been hafted by fixing them midway into 

 the split end of a shaft, and then binding across with thong. 



^ Axes of this form, matle of copper or of a metal containing a very small propor- 

 tion of tin, have been found, not unf requently, in Ireland ; and may be considered to 

 belong to the transition jjeriod between the use of stone and bronze. 



