98 Shcppard: Two East Yorkshire Bronze Axes. 



of the handle are deep. It much resembles some of the axes 

 discovered at Hotham in 1867, which were formerly in the 

 possession of Canon Greenwell, were sold by him to the late 

 Pierpont Morgan, and are now in the British Museum. They 

 were illustrated by the present writer in the Transactions oj 

 the Hull Scientific and Field Naturalists' Club for 1900, and 

 I think it can be taken that the axe head, now figured, is part 

 of the founder's hoard therein described, although it was 

 discovered many years subsequently. This supposition is 

 borne out by the fact that the axe is partly broken through 

 in the centre, the lower half being almost exactly similar to a 

 broken half in the Hotham hoard, in addition to which the 

 top part of the axe is hammered down. The specimen measures 

 51 in. in length, 2| in. in greatest width, the cutting edge 

 is 3| in. long, and across the wings it is i| in. wide. The 

 weight is 14! ozs. 



The other example is a socketed axe, of a distinctly late 

 and plain type. The socket is slightly squared on the outside, 

 and almost circular on the inside. There are traces of a 

 simple collar, half-an-inch from the top, and the axe is devoid 

 of the usual three raised ribs on each side, or of any other form 

 of decoration. In general type it is similar to those from the 

 Scarborough hoard, described in The Naturalist for 1918, 

 page 280. It is 3I in. in length, if in. greatest width ; the 

 cutting edge, which is not hammered out very much, is 

 i| in.; across the socket, the outside measurement is i| in., 

 the inside i\ in. It weighs 7 ozs. The axe, however,- possesses 

 a feature which is altogether different from any other socketed 

 example, either in the Hull or Driffield Collections, or in the 

 Doncaster, Whitby, Scunthorpe, or other Museums, which 

 I have examined and described. That difference is in the 

 line made by the junction of the valves forming the mould, 

 which instead of being straight, is distinctly wavy, evidently 

 due to the fact that the halves of the moulds fitted together in 

 a wavy edge, instead of a straight one. This is particularly 

 noticeable on the opposite side to the loop or handle. The 

 specimen was found at Walling Fen, near Howden, in 1883. 



In the British Museum Guide to the Antiquities of the 

 Bronze Age, Second Edition, p. 113, is figured a ' Bronze 

 mould for palstaves,' the valves of which shew a similarly 

 serrated edge, and any palstaves cast in this mould might be 

 expected to have a similar feature in this respect, to that of 

 the Walling Fen socketed axe. Mr. Reginald Smith, F.S.A., 

 of the British Museum, however, informs us that while the 

 outside of this mould has the mortise and tenon arrangement, 

 the inside is straight and the lines on the axes cast therein are 

 normal. Mr. Smith also informs us that he knows of no 

 socketed axe with a wavy line on the edge, like ours. 



Naturalist 



