446 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



The apertures in the blade are considered by Canon Greenwell to have 

 been introduced in order to economize the metal, and this only at a late period 

 in the evolution of the spear-head. He states that some spear-heads found 

 in Italy, Hungary, etc., have small round holes at the base of their wings;but 

 these do not in any way represent the lunate openings or the loops on 

 the socket of spears found in the United Kingdom.' It may, however, 

 be pointed out that a somewhat short socketed spear-head found in East 

 Russia, figm-ed by Montelius,- shows two large openings in the wings 

 r^embling those in spears found in the United Kingdom. 



The identification of the type with the United Kingdom may be said to 

 be certain, as the socketed spear-head itself appears to have been evolved in 

 the British Islands, and the only question is how far the form with the 

 apertures in the wings may have been affected by the type of the Greek 

 Islands, or whether it was due, as Canou Greenwell suggests, to economizing 

 the metal, or again was evolved from the looped spear-head. Some 

 specimens of this type of spear-head have, as well as the lunate openings, 

 small circular holes either at the base of the openings, or alternately one 

 above one opening and one below the other on opposite sides, in which ease 

 the lunate openings are placed not directly opposite to one another, and in 

 one example the small holes are placed one above each opening and one 

 below it. 



One example found at Denhead, Coupar Angus, has no less than ten 

 circular holes, six above the lunate openings and four below them, making 

 two series of five holes on each wing. In the ease of the Irish examples, I 

 have examined the holes to see if there was any trace of aiiy substance having 

 been inserted in them, but I could find none. The casting of one spear-head 

 of this type is singularly good and rare : it is unfortunately much broken, but 

 was very highly ornamented. There was a raised rib down the centre of the 

 mid-rib and a similar raised rib roimd the lunate openings and the inner 

 sides of the wings, which are peculiar, as, where they start from the lunate 

 openings, they are, as can be seen in the figure, separate from the mid-rib, 

 though they no doubt joined this higher up. The circular holes at the base 

 of the openings are also decorated with a raised lim, and probably contained 

 settings of some kind. In some the breadth of the wings is decreased in 

 width and the socket has lengthened, while the openings, which are small, 

 are placed higher up in the vrings. The casting of the spears is very fine, and 

 they are ornamented with ribs round the apertures and down the sides of the 



' Aichaeologia, 61, p. 4.52, note. 



' Die Chronologie der allesten Bronzezeit, p. 214, fig. 518. 



