Notes on bronze sickles : with special reference to those found in Scotland / by John Alexander Smith.

Date:
[1868?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Notes on bronze sickles : with special reference to those found in Scotland / by John Alexander Smith. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    302 Another, found in Alderney, also Bomewliat peculiar, is figured in the Journal of the British Archseological Association, vol. in. p. 9. The meao-re character of the list now given shows the rarity ot these bronze relics, which tell us of the small crops and laborious agri- culture of the early inhabitants of Britain ; some of them however, show at the same time, by their elegant forms and ornamental character, the great skill of the workers in metals at the same early period. In the lake dwellings of Switzerland, those great depositories of ancient remains, we find, as Dr Keller informs us in his valuable Eeports that at various sites, sickles made of bronze have been discovered. They differ, however, somewhat from those found in the British Islands, being ! nerally more regularly curved in their outline, and more fla tened in S: Lter, the blades being flat on one side, and having ^-quen y severd raised lines or ridges on the other, which run somewhat parallel to the outer edge of the blade. i i. p +i „ None of these sickles seem to have hollow or tubular sockets for the insertion of the wooden handle, one extremity of the blade being simply broad r and less pointed than the other, and it is commonly grooved, ^Cbe ter to adapt it for being apparently fixed to the extremi y of a vooden bandle, to which it has been attached by nails passed through The rivet holes which are commonly pierced through that extremity of ''^Tt'size of these sickles is apparently much about the same or perhaps rather larger, than those found in Great Britain or Ireland The 'averag of those found in considerable numbers at Nidau and Lattnngen seems to be about 5-^ inches in length, in a line drawn from pom to po!nt across the extremities of the blade ; and the bi^adth in the middl blade, from 1^ to 1| inches; while one found at Estavayai^measur^ 63 inches across, from one termination of the blade to the other. '^Im ng the collection of implements found at Marni, one of these piltrsites on the Lake of xNeuchatel, sickle blades were discovered, ? W n this instance of iron. Some of these resemble co->dorably in ch aracter those formed of bronze, found in what are considered to hav been more ancient sites. These iron sickles are generally of largei s ze than the bronze sickles; they are less curved in form, and have one ex- ulity somewhat produced into a pointed termination or tang, evidently