Fig. 330.—China. ½
An instance of the use of an analogous form of weapon in another part of the world is afforded by some bronze blades from China, of which one is represented in Fig. 330. For the loan of the original of this figure I am indebted to Mr. A. W. Franks, F.R.S. As will be readily seen, the blade is adapted for being attached at nearly a right angle to a shaft, into which the flat tang behind the stop-ridge would be inserted, and the blade would then be secured in its position by laces or straps passing through the slots at the base of the blade. The antiquity of such weapons in China it is hard to ascertain, but they probably date back to a period many centuries remote from the present day.
Several of them are engraved in a Chinese work on antiquities, “The Golden Study,” to which Mr. H. N. Moseley, F.R.S., has kindly called my attention. What appear to be bronze spear-heads and swords are figured in the same work.
A bronze weapon of the same kind, but with a socket, which, like the blade, is highly ornamented, was found on the Yenissei,[975] in Siberia. There is the figure of a kind of antelope projecting from the socket opposite the blade. Another, from Viatka, in Russia, has the head of an animal in the same position.
An iron weapon with a socket at right angles to the blade, from the Inwa,[976] Perm, appears to be a halberd of much the same kind.
This form of weapon closely approximates to the Australian “malga”[977] and to some other wooden weapons in use in New Caledonia.
As it is in Ireland and Scotland that the most characteristic of the halberd blades have been discovered, it will be well to commence with the examples from those countries rather than with those from England.
In Fig. 331 is represented a fine specimen of a form not unusual in Ireland, though the central rib is somewhat more ornamented than is generally the case. The rivets, as usual, are three in number, and are still preserved in the blade. In this case they are about ⅜ inch in diameter and ¾ inch between the heads, which are about ⅝ inch in diameter and have been carefully hammered into an almost hemispherical form. The midrib ends abruptly in a straight line where it abutted on the shaft. The metal appears to have a considerably less proportion of tin to copper than is usual with bronze weapons. It looks in fact almost like pure copper.
Fig. 331.—Ireland. ½