A flanged celt with a slight stop-ridge, having the sides ornamented with a cable pattern and the faces with rows of triangles alternately hatched and plain, is shown in Fig. 24. The original was found near Perth,[234] and is in the collection of the Rev. James Beck, F.S.A. A celt with five hatched bands surmounted by triangles, and with the sides cable moulded, though found in Denmark,[235] much resembles this Scottish specimen and some of those from Ireland. Another with similar sides, but with the lower part of the faces ornamented with narrow vertical grooves, was found at Applegarth,[236] Dumfriesshire, and is now in the Antiquarian Museum at Edinburgh. It is represented in Fig. 25.
Another decorated celt of the same character, though with different ornamentation, is shown in Fig. 26. The curved hands on the faces are formed of lines with dots between, and the sides have a kind of fern-leaf pattern upon them, like that on the winged celt from Trillick, Fig. 98. The original was found at Dams, Balbirnie,[237] Fifeshire.
Fig. 26.—Dams. ½————Fig. 27.—Ballinamallard. ½
A very large number of flat celts of the simplest form have been found in Ireland. So numerous are they that it would only encumber these pages were I to attempt to give a detailed account of all the varieties, and of all the localities at which they have been found. Sir William Wilde, in his most valuable “Catalogue of the Museum of the Royal Irish Academy,” has placed on record a large amount of information upon this subject, from which some of the facts hereafter mentioned are borrowed, and to which the reader is referred for farther information. Some of those of the rudest manufacture are formed “of red, almost unalloyed copper.”[238] These vary in length from about 2½ inches to 6½ inches, and are never ornamented.
In Fig. 27 is shown a small example of a celt apparently of pure copper, which was found at Ballinamallard, Co. Fermanagh, and was kindly added to my collection by the Earl of Enniskillen. I have another, more like Fig. 28, from Ballybawn, Co. Cork, presented to me by Mr. Robert Day, F.S.A.
A small celt of this character, from King’s County, now in the British Museum, is only 2⅛ inches in length.
Fig. 28 shows a very common form of Irish celt, in this instance made of bronze. The instruments of this type are in general nearly flat, and without any marked central ridge, such as is to be observed more frequently on the longer and narrower form, of which a remarkably small specimen from the collection of Mr. R. Day, F.S.A., is shown in Fig. 29.
