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XIX. Observations on Stone Hammers. By Mr. Pegge

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 July 2012

Pegge
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Extract

We have had two stone instruments lately discovered in this island, which are supposed, and I think with reason, to be British, and of a very remote antiquity. They were exhibited at the Society accompanied with learned dissertations by the respective members; the first by the late worthy president, the bishop of Carlisle, and the second by the Rev. Mr. Lort. Another of these instruments has lately fallen into my hands, on which occasion, as there seems to remain some doubt concerning the use of them amongst our ancestors, I shall take the liberty of giving my opinion upon that head, together with the grounds thereof.

Type
Research Article
Information
Archaeologia , Volume 2 , Issue 1 , 1773 , pp. 124 - 128
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1773

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References

page 124 note [a] Mr. Hearne, however, in Leland's Itin. iv. p. vi. esteems them Danish.

page 124 note [b] Mr. Hearne is of the same opinion, l. c.

page 124 note [c] Montfaucon's Antiq. vol. V. p. 132, Engl. edit.

page 125 note [d] Staffordshire, plate xxxiii.

page 125 note [e] Warwickshire, p. 778.

page 125 note [f] Gordon's Itin. Septentr p. 172.

page 125 note [g] Mr. Lort's opinion, as here stated, accompanied the stone inserted in plate viii. (fig. 2.), found 6 feet below the surface, in a turf moss, about 2 miles from Haversham, in Westmoreland. Large trees have been discovered lying nearly parallel to each other, above and under the surface of the same moss. The stone is of a close grit, 11 inches long, 3 inches thick, and 4 inches and a half broad, with a hole in the middle. Mr. Lort observes an instrument somewhat resembling this in the Museum Danicum, described as “Malleus lapideus nigricante constans “minera silicea, quæ ferme lapidem Lydium resert, figura cuneum acutum, “10 pollices longus.” The author of this account doubts whether the stone be natural or artificial. The same book mentions an urn found in Holsatia 1686, containing ashes, bones, a flint spear head, and a stone like a hatchet. Mr. Lort then cites the malleus of Thor, and concludes with supposing these instruments made before the use of iron was known among the Indians.

page 126 note [h] Thoresby's Museum, p. 339.

page 127 note [i] I take the stone axes in Montsaucon, which occur with urns, &c. and even with military weapons, to have been implements of domestic use nevertheless. And the two cited by Mr. Lort from the Museum Danicum to have been for the same purpose.

page 128 note [k] Hearne in Leland's Itin. vol. IV. p. vi. et seq.