3. other weapon heads made of bone. 



luv. Amd. 11 (Plate XVI) is the loose bone shaft which 

 belongs to a harpoon (or lance). It is a piece of white bone, 

 part of a narwhal tusk, much corroded and overgrown with 

 sea-weed ; it seems to have been carefully carved, but it is 

 broken off at both ends. It is 33*6 cm long, slightly curved, 

 rhomboidical in cross-section, but the upper and lower angles 

 of the section are fairly blunt, towards the basis almost rounded, 

 so that this part of the bone is biconvex. The hole for the 

 strap is double, the bone having at its lower part in two places 

 along the median axis a transverse, direct perforation. The two 

 perforations are alike and parallel to each other. Under (or 

 behind! three of the apertures is seen on the surface of the 

 bone a shallow groove, pointing towards the basis, to receive 

 the strap which attached the bone head to the end of the 

 wooden shaft. This strap must, of course, have been double- 

 running. The edges of the apertures are blunt. The fourth 

 aperture is broken off underneath, a fairly large piece out of 

 the side of the bone having been destroyed. The interior of 

 the line-holes has been widened out, owing to their crossing the 

 interior channel of the tusk. — It is impossible to determine 

 whether the weapon in its fore part had a slit for the insertion 

 of a blade, or whether the bone itself was pointed. Its having 

 a socket at its basis is due to the interior channel of the tusk 

 having been opened by the basal bevelling. In any case we 

 must assume that the butt end was pointed sufficiently for it 

 to fit into the socket of the fore-shaft (the bone head of the 

 wooden shaft). 



