A longer celt of the same character is engraved by Dr. Plot.[480] It was sent to him by Charles Cotton, Esq., and according to Plot “seems to have been the head of a Roman rest used to support the lituus, the trombe-torte, crooked trumpet, or horne pipe used in the Roman armies.” Another of nearly the same form was found on Meon Hill,[481] near Camden, Gloucestershire.
A celt or chisel of this character found at Düren, in North Brabant, is in the museum at Leyden.
Another was found at Zaborowo,[482] in Posen, in a sepulchral urn.
A celt of the octagonal form of section and without a loop is shown in Fig. 160. It formed part of the great hoard found at Carlton Rode, near Attleborough, Norfolk, of which some particulars have already been given. The joint marks of the moulds are still very distinct upon the sides. This specimen is in the Norwich Museum, and was kindly lent by the trustees for me to have it engraved. A nearly similar Scottish celt is shown in Fig. 165. A celt from the hoard of Cumberlow, near Baldock,[483] has been figured as having no loop, but I believe that this has arisen from an error of the engraver, as in a drawing which I have seen the loop is present.
One of hexagonal section and socket from a hoard found on Earsley Common,[484] Yorkshire, in 1735, is engraved as having no loop.
Celts without loops are not uncommon in France, and are often found of small size in Denmark.[485]
Socketed celts have rarely if ever been found with interments in barrows in Britain. Sir R. Colt Hoare mentions “a little celt” as having been found with a small lance, and a long pin with a handle, all of bronze, near the head of a skeleton, in a barrow on Overton Hill,[486] near Abury, Wilts. The body had been buried in the contracted attitude, and had, as was thought, been enclosed within the trunk of a tree. It appears, however, from Dr. Thurnam’s account,[487] that this was a flat and not a socketed celt. It was a celt like Fig. 116, 3¼ inches long, which is reported to have been discovered by the late Rev. R. Kirwan in a barrow on Broad Down, Farway, Devonshire.[488] It is said to have lain in the midst of an abundant deposit of charcoal which was thought to be the remains of a funeral pyre. Mr. Kirwan informed Dr. Thurnam that there was every reason to believe that the celt was deposited where found at the time of the original interment. No bones, however, were actually with the celt, which lay 18 inches from the central cist.
Fig. 161.
Arras
A socketed celt with three vertical ribs, like Fig. 125, is also said to have been found with a human skeleton, and two uninscribed ancient British coins of silver, at Cann,[489] near Shaftesbury, in 1849. The celt and coins are now in the collection of Mr. Durden, of Blandford. In neither case are the circumstances of the discovery absolutely certain.