163
TWO PREHISTORIC WEAPONS RECENTLY
FOUND NEAR EPPING.
AT a meeting of the British Archaeological Association on the 4th of April,
1894, our esteemed member, Mr. Benjamin Winstone, M.D., F.S.A.,
exhibited two interesting prehistoric implements, and
read some notes on the same, which have since been
published in the "Archaeological Journal." Mr. Win-
stone has kindly lent the blocks of the engravings of
these implements and allowed us to make the following
extracts from his paper :
The bronze weapon illustrated by Fig. I was taken
by Mr. Francis Hart off a heap of old iron gathered
on Caines or Cannes Farm, in North Weald, near
Epping. "Unfortunately there is no procurable informa-
tion as to when or on what part of the farm it was
found ; but as it had been carelessly thrown on the heap
of metal, there is trustworthy circumstantial evidence
of its having been turned up during some agricultural
operations." The total length of the weapon is 153/4 inches,
the blade tapers to a fine point and is 131/2 inches long and
15/8 in width at the base. "The arrangement for fixing the
handle differs from that in the bronze instruments usually
found. They have the butt-end prolonged like scythes,
sickles, chisels, etc., of the present time, so as to go
through the length of the handle, whilst the specimen
now described has the butt-end flattened out. The
handle must have been formed of two pieces of wood,
through which passed the rivets, which were then bound
or riveted together to fit the handle to the hand ; or a
groove cut in a piece of wood properly shaped, so as to
admit of the insertion of the flat end and made fast by
the rivets." Cannes Farm is not more than six miles
from Fyfield, where, according to Gough in his edition of
"Camden," were found in 1749 a "great number of
celts, with a large quantity of metal for casting them,
fifty pound of which, with several of the instruments,
the late Earl Tilney gave to Mr. Lethieullier." Mr.
Winstone thinks that the evidence points to a manu-
factory of such implements at Fyfield, the bronze
being imported in lumps as stated by Sir John Evans,
and that the implement here figured may have been
one from this manufactory. In the British Museum
are some daggers of similar description and one is
figured by Evans, found at Coveney, near Downham
Hithe, in Cambridgeshire, so like the one from North
Weald as to give rise to the supposition in Mr. Winstone*'
mind that they came out of the same manufactory, more
especially as Fyfield is not very far from Cambridgeshire.
Fig. 1. Bronze Implement found on Cains ok Cannes Farm, North Weald
Bassett, Essex, by Mr. Francis Hart.