Coffey — Spea^^-heads of the Bronze Age found in Ireland. 497 



to the shaft were probably of wood, horn, or bone. Evans mentions, 

 however, a bronze spear-head in his collection from the Seine at Paris, 

 which retains a metallic rivet, and two examples in Mr. Day's collec- 

 tion still retain bronze rivets. 



As ia the case of the looped class, decorated specimens are rare. 

 But the separation of type extends to the decoration. The ornament 

 on the leaf-shaped spear-heads is usually confined to a number of rings 

 or fillets round the bottom of the socket, either simply incised or, in 

 instances, showing some relief ; the spaces between the rings in a few 

 examples are reeded. In the case of the remarkable specimen found at 

 Lough Gur, and now in the Pitt Rivers collection at Oxford, the 

 ornament on the socket is inlaid with gold (Evans, fig. 379}. 



A specimen in the Academy's collection found at 

 Athenry (fig. 22) is exceptional as regards ornament. 



In the Academy's collection, two examples of the 

 plaia leaf- shaped form have rings round the mouth of 

 the socket, in one case consisting of a raised double 

 fillet. In addition, one of the examples with rivet- 

 holes and large segmental apertures in the blade is 

 ringed and reeded on the socket like the Lough Gur 

 spear-head. In England, rings on the sockets of leaf- 

 shaped spear-heads appear to be more common. They 

 usually consist of a number of engraved or punched 

 bands of three or four rings, sometimes accompanied 

 by vertical lines or dots. Evans records nine examples. 

 It is worthy of note that the English examples are 

 chiefly from the south-eastern counties. This may point to associations 

 with the Continent, where that form of decoration is fairly common on 

 the sockets of spear-heads. 



Some examples of the leaf -shaped form found in England show an 

 ornamentation of hatched triangles characteristic of the Bronze Period. 

 Evans records the following: — " One from "Yorkshire has round the 

 socket three bands of triangles alternately hatched and plain, and 

 the blade is ornamented with a single row of the same kind on each 

 side of the central rib." One from Somerset " has a band of hatched 

 triangles above three bands of parallel lines with transverse lines 

 between." A third, from Herefordshire, "has the blade ornamented 

 in the same way. A row of plain triangles is left on each side of the 

 midrib, while the rest of the blade is hatched, the set of parallel lines 

 in each point between the plain triangles being alternately to the right 

 and to the left (p. 320)." Similar decoration is found on some of the 



E.I. A. PEOC., SEE. nr., VOL. III. 2 L 



22. — Athenry (W. 

 251)- 



