Some remarks as to the almost if not absolutely entire absence of bronze arrow-heads in this country will be found in a subsequent page.
The larger specimens of these tanged blades of somewhat triangular outline I have described as daggers, but I must confess that the distinction between knives and daggers is in such cases purely arbitrary. The more rounded forms which now follow seem rather of the nature of tools or toilet instruments than weapons.
Fig. 265, copied from Dr. Thurnam’s plate,[766] represents what has been regarded as a razor blade. It was found in a barrow at Winterslow, Wilts, and is now in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford. Its resemblance to the leaf of rib-wort (Plantago media) has been pointed out by Dr. Thurnam, who records that it was found in an urn with burnt bones and a set of beautiful amber buttons or studs. He has also figured one of nearly the same size, but with fewer ribs, from a barrow at Priddy, Somerset. This also has been regarded as an arrow-head, though it is 3 inches long and 1½ inches broad. It has a small rivet-hole through the tang. The original is now in the Bristol Museum, and its edge is described as sharp enough to mend a pen.[767] I have reproduced it in Fig. 266. A blade of much the same kind was found in an urn, with an axe-hammer of stone and a whetstone, at Broughton-in-Craven,[768] in 1675.
Fig. 267.—Balblair. —————— Fig. 268.—Rogart. 1/1
Canon Greenwell records the finding of an oval knife (2⅞ inches) with burnt bones in an urn at Nether Swell,[769] Gloucestershire.
A flat blade, almost circular, with a somewhat longer tang than any here figured, formed part of the great Bologna hoard.
These instruments are occasionally found in Scotland. Some of them are of rather larger size, and ornamented in a different manner upon the face.
A small plain oval blade, which has possibly lost its tang, was found in a tumulus at Lieraboll,[770] Kildonan, Sutherland, and has been figured. Two oval blades were found with burnt bones in urns near St. Andrews.[771]