36 
at the side ; it is represented in plate 13, fig. 3. Plate 13, fig. 5, 
was found at Paestum, and in the Musee de l’Artillerie, at Paris, 
are five from Naples and one from Corsica. In the National 
Museum at Naples are two bronze celts, found at Passtum. They 
have peculiar perforations at the end, and are both of the wedge 
shape. (Class 3) plate 13, fig. 5. In the same collection is a 
bronze hatchet, found at Pompeii, with a perforation to admit the 
handle, plate 14, fig. 7. This is evidently a late idea. Anti¬ 
quarians have often expressed their astonishment that this most 
secure mode of hafting the implement should not have suggested 
itself to the ancient bronze worker. In the “ iron period” this 
mode of mounting the tool-weapon became general. No less than 
80 celts were discovered at one time in the parish of La Trinite, 
Jersey, and some have been found in Alderney, so that these 
implements are likewise found in the Channel Islands. 
The dark green, smooth and polished surface (patina) seen on 
ancient bronze objects is artificial malachite (carbonate of copper), 
into which the external coating of the bronze has been converted 
by age. Once formed it serves to prevent oxidation. Time alone 
seems capable of producing this patina ; at all events, forgers have 
hitherto been unable to impart it to their spurious productions. 
(See Nos. 52 and 53.) Some celts are covered with a thick brown 
crust. This, upon analysis, is found to be chiefly iron, derived 
from the soil in which the specimen has been embedded. Sometimes 
this crust is found to overlie the previously-formed green patina. 
It is probable, in the dawn of an age of metal, even when the 
art of casting became known, that the earliest efforts were directed 
to reproduce in the newly-discovered material the familiar forms of 
the stone period. The wedge-shaped stone axe would be followed 
by an exact copy in metal, and so in the Museum at Berlin may 
be seen a copper celt of the precise outline and thickness of its 
stone prototype. This specimen was found in an Etruscan tomb ; 
it is six inches long and 2J inches wide in the thickest part. Of 
course the extreme weight of such an implement would suggest a 
reduction in the thickness, and this would give us the ordinary 
wedge-shaped type of celt. It is not a little remarkable that all 
the 26 copper celts in the Museum of the Royal Irish Academy 
are of this form ; moreover, they are all totally unornamented, and 
they appear to have been cast in single stone moulds. Indeed, on 
account of the material (unalloyed copper) and the rudeness of the 
casting, they are considered to be the earliest metallic specimens in 
the collection. 
Bronze celts have been thus classed 
1. Flat, wedge-shaped celts, Nos. 1 to 5, and plate 12, fig. 1 
and 2. 
2. Wedge-shaped, with a projection on each lateral edge. 
This is an Irish type, and is not represented in this collection, 
plate 12, fig. 3. 
