Having said thus much with regard to the early iron chisels, it will, however, now be well to proceed to the consideration of those formed of bronze, and of the other bronze tools found in this country.
CHAPTER VII.
CHISELS, GOUGES, HAMMERS, AND OTHER TOOLS.
Although, doubtless, many if not most of the instruments of different forms, described in the preceding chapters, were used as tools, and not as weapons, yet in some cases, especially where they have been found in graves, it is more probable that they formed part of the equipment of a warrior than of an artificer. With regard to the various forms of which I intend to treat in the present chapter, there can hardly exist a doubt that they should be regarded as tools, and not as weapons. Already in the Neolithic Period we find many of these forms of tools, such as chisels and gouges, developed; and so far as hammers are concerned, it seems probable that for many purposes a stone held in the hand may have served during the Bronze Period as a hammer or mallet, just as it often does now in the age of steel and steam. I have elsewhere[567] mentioned a fact communicated to me by the late Mr. David Forbes, F.R.S., that in Peru and Bolivia the masons, skilful in working hard stone with steel chisels, make use of no other mallet or hammer than a stone pebble held in the hand.
The simplest form of chisel is of course a short bar of metal brought to an edge at one end and left blunt at the other where it receives the blows of the hammer or mallet. Such at the present day are the ordinary chisels of the stone-mason, and the “cold chisel” of the engineer.
Most of the Scandinavian chisels of flint are of nearly the same form as the simplest metal chisels, being square in section in the upper part and gradually tapering to an edge at the lower end. Bronze chisels of this form are, however, but rarely met with in any part of Europe. One such, however, was found at Plymstock,[568] near Oreston, Devonshire, in company with sixteen flanged celts like Figs. 9 and 10, three daggers, and a tanged spear-head, engraved as Fig. 327. It is shown in Fig. 190. Its length is 4 inches, and the cutting edge is rather more than ¼ inch in width. The late Mr. Albert Way, who describes this specimen in the Archæological Journal, regarded it as unique in England; and the form, so far as I am aware, has not again been found in this country. It is now in the British Museum.
I have a large chisel of the same type, but apparently formed of copper, which was found in the neighbourhood of Pressburg, Hungary. It is 7½ inches long, about ⅞ inch square in the middle, and expands in width at the edge, which is lunate. Others of the same form, 4½ inches and 5¾ inches long, also from Hungary, are in the Zurich Museum. Such chisels have also been found in the Swiss Lake-dwellings.
