A somewhat larger instrument, but of precisely the same type, found at Ramsbury,[308] Wilts, is engraved in the Salisbury volume of the Archæological Institute. The Rev. James Beck, F.S.A., has one (6¼ inches) of narrower proportions, found at Pulborough,[309] Sussex. I have seen another from near Wallingford, Berks. Stukeley has engraved a somewhat similar palstave found near Windsor.[310]
Fig. 73.—Dorchester. ½
In some the bottom of the recesses, instead of being square, is rounded more or less like Fig. 52, and there is a projecting bead round its margin. I have a narrow specimen of this kind 5⅝ inches long and 1⅛ inch broad at the edge, found in the neighbourhood of Dorchester, Oxon.
A number of palstaves of this kind were discovered in 1861 at Wilmington,[311] Sussex, in company with socketed celts, fragments of two daggers, and a mould for socketed celts. The whole of these are now in the Lewes Museum.
In the hoard found near Guilsfield,[312] Montgomeryshire, were some instruments of this kind, associated with socketed celts, gouges, swords, scabbards, spear-heads, &c. Others from Stretton,[313] Staffordshire (5¼ inches), and Lancashire[314] (5½ inches) are engraved, though badly, in the Archæologia. Two others of this character (5 inches) were found on Hangleton Down,[315] near Brighton, and another at Glangwnny,[316] near Caernarvon.
I have seen others found at Sutton, near Woodbridge, Suffolk.
A larger example of the same type, found near Wallingford, and communicated to me by Mr. H. A. Davy, is shown in Fig. 74. In this the blade is flat and without ornament. The short specimen shown in Fig. 73 may originally have resembled this; as such instruments must have been liable to break, and would then have been drawn out and sharpened in a curtailed condition; or if not broken would become eventually “stumped up” by wear. In the British Museum and elsewhere are many palstaves and celts which have been worn almost to the stump by resharpening.
Nearly thirty palstaves, mostly, I believe, of this type, were found with about twelve socketed celts, like Fig. 116, and lumps of rough metal, near Worthing, in 1877. The whole had been packed in an urn, of coarse earthenware.