Fig. 214.—Spear-head of Bronze from Lough Gur. One-half real size.
Fig. 215. Ferrule, showing Gold Ornamentation. Full size.
Lough Gur.—Ante, pp. [6], [25-6], [83], [150], [156], &c. There was found here a remarkably fine bronze spear-head, now in the collection of General A. Pitt Rivers, F. R. S. The lower part of its socket was ornamented with gold (see figs. [214] and [215]). Homer more than once mentions the gold ring, or ferrule, around the spear-head of Hector. The two following relics—also from Lough Gur—may be seen in the British Museum:—(1) A moiety of a stone mould for casting spear-heads and other pointed objects of various sizes: “it is a four-sided prism, six and a-half inches long, and two and a half inches broad at one end of each face, and one and three-quarter inches at the other. A second similar prism would, it has been observed, give four perfect moulds for casting spear-heads slightly varying in form, but in each case provided with side-loops. These loops are, as usual, semicircular in form on the mould, and were no doubt destined to be flattened in the usual manner by a subsequent process of hammering. There is one special feature in this mould, viz., that at the base of the blade there is a transverse notch in the stone, evidently destined to receive a small pin which would serve to keep the core for the socket in its proper position. There is a similar transverse notch in one of the smaller moulds for the pointed objects”[241] ([fig. 216]). (2) An iron sword, which is ornamented on the blade thus,
. The cross-like form does not necessarily denote that the weapon belongs to the Christian era, for an almost similar symbol
appears in an ancient Mexican MS. now in the Belfast Museum.[242]
Fig. 216.—Stone Mould for casting weapons, from Lough Gur.