The Found Object

It was loaned to me by a friend, he found it on his father’s farm as a young lad some sixty years ago.

It’s quite a handful, about seven pounds and to me a thing of beauty and wonder. My guess is that it is an axe head, it’s made of carefully worked stone and has wonderful design and symmetry, every part of it looks and feels exactly the way it should.

It is made from some kind of basalt which is not readily worked by chipping and is so smoothly finished that it must have been ground from a solid block using a series of other stones. As an axe head it would have been bound into a split wood handle and would have formed a formidable weapon. It’s certainly not a household tool and does not have a sharp cutting edge and would not be useful for cutting wood or trees. It has no chips or scratches on the cutting edge and with the exception of the darkened areas on the sides is unmarked by use or time. My guess is that it was ceremonial, a symbol of power for the chief, a big club for the big man.

It surely dates from “before the coming of the white man” and it could easily have lain in the ground for a couple of millennia before being found again.

I’m not given to superstition but just looking at this thing made me shiver and picking it up was like getting hold of something alive, it radiates power and strength out of all relation to its size.

My friend obviously did not feel the same way, the surface damage was caused by using it to sharpen his penknife when he was a boy.

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Author: Low Wattage

Expat Welshman, educated (somewhat) in UK, left before it became fashionable to do so. Now a U.S. Citizen, and recent widower, playing with retirement and house remodeling, living in Delaware and rural Maryland (weekends).

13 thoughts on “The Found Object”

  1. Interesting piece LW, although you say it is not a household tool it does fit the hand as if it was made for it. Were their any other pieces found nearby or was this isolated? Interestingly, the lower pics make it look like a different object from the top, got me puzzled.
    Mate of mine in Virginia used to live near a piece of land with a small river running through it that used to turn into a torrent after heavy rain. He would then go looking for arrow heads that had been disturbed by the water.

  2. I tried googling this. I gave up looking for information after about ten minutes – patience is not one of my ‘virtues’! I found a couple of pictures of axes that look similar, but was quite amazed to find that they were all on sites selling these items. The sites with information were limited in pictures! Grr!

    What was fascinating was that none of the axes had a ground edge.

    The best site I found was this one.
    http://www.learnnc.org/lp/editions/nchist-twoworlds/1674

    It might be worth your friend checking it out with the local museum!

  3. Hello OMG: Yes, it does have a natural grip but it really overfills the hand, I’ve got big hands and I could not get my fingers around it to hold it firmly.

    I did ask my friend if anything else was found nearby, I was hoping this was found laying across the body or bones of the chief, not that burials were common. He said it was turned up by the plough and as far as he knew it was all there was.

    The two lower shots are with the axe head standing on its edge, on the left the handle edge is uppermost and on the right is a view of the the edge the enemy might see.

    I often find flint arrowheads on the little sandy point across the creek, the success rate in making good ones was obviously quite low as most of them are unfinished and spoiled in some way.

  4. Boa: I told him to take it to the antiques roadshow, I said they would likely tell him “If you had not ruined this by sharpening your penknife on it, it would be worth a Million dollars. In it’s present state it is only worth ten bucks”

  7. This is so interesting, LW, and I think I would be very tempted to find out more about these objects.

    Boadicea is right, a museum is your best bet.

    I can understand your feelings as you handle it though. It’s quite amazing to think you are holding something that could have been used goodness knows how many years ago.

  8. It could be a war axe, set into a split haft and bound with withies. They were not sharp either. neither would they mark hitting flesh and bones.
    It would have taken one hell of a long time to make that, I would have thought that even if it were used for ceremonial purposes that it would have a practical application also. Someone should try mounting it and see if it swings well.

  9. You could well be right Christina. It would make a very nasty dent even without a cutting edge.

  11. LW, in the four years we were in Jordan in the early 1980s, we joined the American Centre of Oriental Research, as volunteers. They used us at weekends to assist in archaelogical excavations, and in the process we learnt a reasonable amount about early man and his flint tools. This image shows some of my own collection and include hide scrapers, burins, and knives.

    This image is of a similar age axehead, one of a number found in the late 1940s in East Bengal by my father, when they were building roads and clearing jungle on the tea estate. This one was gifted by him to the Elgin Museum in 1951. I have a similar one at home which is used as a paperweight!

  12. Your object looks as if it may have been designed to be attached to a shaft handle, probably secured with leather strapping, and if it is fairly heavy I suspect will have been a weapon for stunning and dispatching prey…nice example.

  13. Thanks for your comments, I have asked around and I am told this is a fine example of a 3/4 grooved axe head from between 3000 and 1000 BC. The haft was attached to the flat side (original picture lower right) so I am holding it arsy versy in the original picture upper left.

    Here’s a drawing of the hafting methods where the shape of the head is unmistakable.

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