I have already mentioned a celt with a moulded top, which, on one of its faces, is ornamented with a small projecting boss. In Fig. 122 is shown an example with two pellets beneath the upper moulding. It was found with others at High Roding, Essex, and is now in the British Museum. Another with three such knobs on each face, placed near the top of the instrument, is shown in Fig. 123. The original is in the British Museum, and was found at Chrishall,[425] Essex, where also several plain celts with single or double mouldings at the top, some spear-heads, and a portion of a socketed knife were dug up.
A large brass coin of Hadrian, much defaced, is said to have been found at the same time. As in other instances, the evidence on this point is unsatisfactory, and if it could be sifted, would probably carry the case no farther than to prove that the Roman coins and the bronze celts were found near the same spot, and possibly by the same man, on the same day. In illustration of this collection of objects of different dates, I may mention that I lately purchased a fifteenth-century jeton as having been found with Merovingian gold ornaments.
— Fig. 123.—Chrishall. ½ – Fig. 124.—Reach Fen. ½ – Fig. 125.—Barrington. ½
Some of the Breton celts, in form like Fig. 120, have two or three knobs on a level with the loop.
Another and common kind of ornament on the faces of socketed celts consists of vertical lines, or ribs, extending from the moulding round the mouth some distance down the faces of the blade. They vary in number, but are rarely less than three. In some instances the ribs are so slight as to be almost imperceptible, a circumstance which suggests the probability of celts in actual use having served as the models or patterns from which the moulds for casting others were made, as in each successive moulding and casting any prominences such as these ribs would be reduced or softened down. On any other supposition it is difficult to conceive how an ornamentation so indistinct as almost to escape observation could have originated. There are some celts which on one face are quite smooth and plain, while on the other some traces of the ribs may just be detected. The same is the case with some of the celts which have the slightest possible traces of the “flanches,” such as seen on Fig. 111. The smearing of metal moulds with clay, to prevent the adhesion of the castings, would tend to obliterate such ornaments.
A celt with the vertical ribs from the hoard of Reach Fen, Cambridge, is shown in Fig. 124. There are slight projecting beads running down the angles. The three ribs die into the face of the blade. Another of nearly the same type, but with coarse ribs somewhat curved, is shown in Fig. 125. It has not the beads at the angles. This specimen was found in company with a celt like Fig. 116, and with a gouge like Fig. 204, at Barrington, Cambridge, and is in my own collection.
Celts of wider proportions, and having the three ribs farther apart, have been frequently found in the Northern English counties. I have one (3¼ inches) from Middleton, on the Yorkshire Wolds, which was given me by Mr. H. S. Harland; and Canon Greenwell, F.R.S., has several from Yorkshire. The celt which was found near Tadcaster,[426] in that county, and which has been so often cited, from the fact of its having a large bronze ring passing through the loop, on which is a jet bead, is also of this type. There can be little doubt that the ring and bead, which not improbably were found at the same time as the celt, were attached to it subsequently by the finder, in the manner in which they may now be seen in the British Museum. A celt with three ribs, from the hoard found at Westow,[427] in the North Riding, has been figured, as has been one from Cuerdale,[428] near Preston, Lancashire, and one (4½ inches) from Rockbourn Down,[429] Wilts, now in the British Museum. One (3¾ inches long) was found near Hull,[430] in Yorkshire; and five others at Winmarley,[431] near Garstang, Lancashire, together with two spears, one of them having crescent-shaped openings in the blade (Fig. 419).
Another was found, with other bronze objects, at Stanhope,[432] Durham.
The celts found with spear-heads and discs near Newark, and now in Canon Greenwell’s collection, are of this type, but of different sizes. That found at Cann,[433] near Shaftesbury, with, it is said, a human skeleton and two ancient British silver coins, had three ribs on its face.