10 



presence of a few stone implements is not in itself sufficient 

 evidence that any given find belongs to the stone age." For 

 instance, I believe that arrow heads of flint, of which there are 

 such large numbers in the Benn collection, continued to be 

 made and used far down into the bronze and iron periods, and 

 it has been asserted that the dark-coloured stone celts or axes, 

 of which such numbers have been found, were in use in Ireland 

 as late as the time of the Stuart monarchs. 



The discovery of copper was, of course, what led to the 

 introduction of the mixed metal, bronze, which, as you are 

 aware, is a very hard metal, formed of a mixture in certain 

 proportions of two soft metals, copper and tin. Tin is too soft 

 for weapons of any kind. Copper is not so soft ; and, as might 

 be expected, the early metal-workers evidently tried how it 

 would suit for weapons, and accordingly we find axes of pure 

 copper in many collections, but they are very rare. I have not 

 heard of copper spear heads or arrow heads as being found in 

 Ireland. With regard to copper implements in the Museum 

 of the Royal Irish Academy, Sir William Wilde writes: — 

 "The only copper implements of very great antiquity in the 

 Academy's collection are some celts evidently of the very 

 earliest pattern, and greatest simplicity in construction, a couple 

 of battle-axes, a sword blade of the curved broad shape usually 

 denominated scythes, a trumpet, a few fibulae, and some rudely 

 formed tools. There can be little doubt that these copper celts 

 are the very oldest metal articles in the collection, and were 

 probably the immediate successors of a similar class of imple- 

 ments of stone." In the Benn collection there is one copper 

 celt, rudely fashioned, of flat shape. The scarcity of copper 

 implements in such finds as have been made is probably to be 

 accounted for by the facts that copper was not found to be a 

 very suitable material for weapons, owing to its softness, and 

 that bronze superseded it before long ; and also because what 

 copper celts were still in the possession of the early metal- 

 workers at the time of the introduction of bronze were re-melted 

 and worked up into bronze implements. 



Of bronze celts there are in the Benn collection 85, from 



