Fig. 239.—Wicken Fen. ½
Both hatchets and knives, or rather knife-daggers, have been found with interments in barrows; but it seems better to include the majority of the latter class of instruments, which appear to occupy an intermediate place between tools and weapons, in the next chapter, which treats of daggers; rather than in this, which will be devoted to what appear to be forms of tools and implements. Some of these, however, like the celt or hatchet, may have been equally available both for peaceful and warlike uses; and though I have to some extent tried to keep tools and weapons under different headings, it appears impossible completely to carry out any such system of arrangement. Nor in treating of what I have regarded as knives does it seem convenient first to describe what appear to be the simpler and older forms, inasmuch as there are other forms which in all respects except the shape of the blade so closely resemble some of the socketed sickles described in the last chapter, that they seem almost of necessity to follow immediately in order. The first instrument which I shall cite has sometimes indeed been regarded as a sickle, though it is more properly speaking a curved knife.
| Fig. 240.— Thorndon. ½ | Fig. 241.— Reach Fen. ½ |
It was found in Wicken Fen, and is now in the Museum of the Cambridge Antiquarian Society, the Council of which has kindly permitted me to engrave it as Fig. 239. It has already been figured, but not quite accurately, in the Archæological Journal,[727] the rib at the back of the blade being omitted. I am not aware of any other example of this form of knife having been found in the United Kingdom, but a double-edged socketed knife with a curved blade, found in Ireland, is in the Bateman Collection.
The ordinary form of socketed knife has a straight double-edged blade, extending from an oval or oblong socket, pierced by one or two holes, through which rivets or pins could pass to secure the haft. These holes are usually at right angles to the axis of the blade, but sometimes in the same plane with it.
Fig. 240 shows a knife with two rivet-holes, which was found at Thorndon, Suffolk, together with socketed celts, a spear-head, hammer, gouge, and an awl, several of which have been figured in preceding pages. Another (9 inches long), much like Fig. 240, but with the sides of the socket flat, and the blade more fluted, was found in the Thames, and is engraved in the Archæological Journal.[728] Another, of much the same size and general character, formed part of a hoard of bronze objects found in Reach Fen, near Burwell, of which mention has already frequently been made. It is in my own collection, and is shown in Fig. 241. I have another, 6½ inches long, found in Edmonton Marsh.
A fine blade of this kind, with two rivet-holes in the hilt (14½ inches), was found in the New Forest, Glamorganshire, and was formerly in the Meyrick Collection.[729] It is now in the British Museum. The blade has shallow flutings parallel with the edges.
A socketed knife of this kind (4½ inches) was found by General A. Pitt Rivers, F.R.S., in a pit at the foot of the interior slope of the rampart of Highdown Camp,[730] near Worthing, Sussex. It may possibly have accompanied a funereal deposit.