Fig. 219.
Heathery Burn. ¼
The early form of file is indeed much the same as that of a very broad saw, the toothing being coarse and running at right angles across the blade. In the cemetery at Hallstatt,[660] in Upper Austria, files of this character were found, several in bronze and one in iron. The bronze files are from 5 to 10 inches long, and some which are flat for the greater part of their length are drawn down, for about 2 inches at the end, into tapering round files. In the Bologna hoard were several fragments of files, including one of a “half-round” file.
Tongs and Punches.
From our greater acquaintance with the working of iron than with that of bronze, there seems to us a sort of natural connection between the anvil, hammer, and tongs. It must, however, be borne in mind that bronze is a metal which instead of being, like iron, tough and ductile, becomes “short” and fragile when heated, so that all the hammering to which the tools and weapons of bronze were subjected in order to planish their faces, or to draw out and harden their edges, was probably administered to them when cold. At least one pair of bronze tongs has, however, been found, which is shown in Fig. 219. This instrument was discovered, with numerous other antiquities, in the cave at Heathery Burn,[661] near Stanhope in Weardale, Durham, and is now in the collection of Canon Greenwell. As half of a mould for socketed celts and some waste runners of bronze were found, it is evident that the practice of casting bronze was carried on in the cave, and these tongs were probably part of the founder’s apparatus. Whether they were used merely as fire-tongs, or for the purpose of lifting the crucible or melting-pot, is a question. They appear, however, much too light to be of service for the latter purpose.
In the museum of the Louvre at Paris are some Egyptian tongs of bronze, which are remarkably similar to those from Durham. A workman seated before a small fireplace, holding a blowpipe to his mouth with one hand and with a pair of tongs in the other, is shown in a painting at Thebes, published by Sir Gardner Wilkinson.[662]
What I have ventured to regard as another of the tools of the bronze-founder is a kind of pointed punch or pricker, of which an example is given in Fig. 220. This, as well as another which had lost its point, was found, with socketed celts, gouges, moulds, &c., forming the whole stock-in-trade of a bronze-founder, in the Isle of Harty, Kent. It seems to have been furnished with a wooden handle, into which the tang was driven as far as the projecting stop; and its purpose appears to have been the extraction of the cores of burnt clay from out of the sockets of the celts.
Fig. 220.—Harty. ½ — Fig. 221.—Reach Fen. ½ — Fig. 222.—Ebnall. 1/1
That these sockets were formed over a core of clay inserted into the mould is proved by numerous celts having been found with the cores still in them. The heat of the melted metal was sufficient to convert the clay into terracotta or brick, and in this condition the cores have been preserved. Some force was necessary to extract such hardened cores, and this could be well effected by driving in such a pointed instrument as that here figured. If the two prickers from the Harty hoard were originally of the same length, the broken one has lost a portion from its end exactly corresponding in length with the depth of the socket of the largest celts found with it; as if it had been driven home through the burnt clay quite to the bottom of the socket, and then had been broken off short at the mouth of the celt in the vain endeavour to extract it.
Some small punches, without any tang for insertion in a handle, were found with socketed celts and numerous other objects in the hoard from Reach Fen, already mentioned. One of these is shown in Fig. 221. No moulds were discovered in this case; and though the hoard has all the appearance of being the stock of an ancient bronze-founder, it is possible that these shorter punches may here have been used for some other purpose than that of extracting cores. The end of one is sharp, that of the other presents a small oblong face. It is possible that, like the instruments next to be described, these may have been punches used in the decoration of other articles of bronze. Mr. H. Prigg,[663] in his description of this hoard, has suggested such an use. The large end of the punch shown in the figure bears no mark of having been hammered; it may, however, have been struck with a wooden mallet. Punches, more chisel-shaped at the point, appear to have been in use for producing the incuse ornaments which occur on so many of the flat and flanged celts. I am not aware of any tools which were undoubtedly used for this purpose having been observed in Britain; but, as I have already remarked, there were found at Ebnall,[664] Salop, two short-edged tools, which may possibly be punches, and if so may have been applied to this use. One of these is shown in Fig. 222, the block for which has been kindly lent me by the Council of the Society of Antiquaries. The other is described as of similar form but of rather longer proportions. They were found in company with spear-heads, celts, gouges, and broad dagger-blades; but it does not appear that any of these were ornamented with punch-marked patterns. The tools may, therefore, have been merely some kind of strong chisels, possibly used for breaking off the jets and superfluous metal from the castings. The thickness of the tool is rather greater than the cut would lead one to imagine, being ½ inch. These two tools have been regarded as hammers, or possibly weights. I have now spoken of them as punches, or possibly chisels, but it may be that after all it was the broad end that was destined for use, in which case they might be regarded as anvils.