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Note on Stone ‘Celts” from Chiriqui
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 March 2016
Extract
Five stone “celts” have been submitted to me, from the collections of antiquarian objects from Chiriquí formed by my friends William Bollaert, Esq., F.R.G.S., Corr. Mem. Univ. Chile, etc., and W. Duprée, M.D., F.R.G.S., of Panamá.
No information has been given to me respecting the locality, condition, or probable age of these “celts.” I understand, however, that they were obtained from the same graves in Chiriquí whence have been derived the various objects wrought in gold and moulded in pottery, some of which have been lately described in the United States, and in this country by Mr. Bollaert.
All the celts exhibited the well-known scalpriform sharpening of the larger end, and are sharpened laterally by a succession of blows, producing facets, analogous to those of the chipped flints which have been found at Abbeville, at the Kjökkenmöddings in Denmark and in various European localities, and which probably belong to a period antecedent to the known historical era.
Four of the celts, marked B 2, B 3, D 1, and D 2, are composed of the porphyritic stone found in great abundance on the Isthmus of Darien. One only, marked B 1, is hewn more roughly than the others from an indurated clay, and closely resembles some of the European worked flints.
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References
page 45 note * Prestwich, Phil. Trans., 1860. Evans, , ‘Archæologia,’ 1860, 1862 Google Scholar.
page 45 note † Natural Hist. Review, Oct. 1861.
page 47 note * de Perthes, Boucher (Antiquités Celtiques et Antédiluviennes, 8vo, ii. 232)Google Scholar describes a series of analogous half-polished hatchets, as appertaining to the “transition” period between the pre-historical and the Celtic nations. He describes one of these “celts” as “une hache à gaîne ou demi-polie. Le tranchant l'est entièrement. La partie destinée à entrer dans la gaîne ne l'est pas.”
In the British Museum collection of antiquities, an object, termed by Mr. Bollaert a “stone club,” is preserved from Cocina, in Peru, near Noria. Mr. Gilbert Brandon has also preserved a “stone hatchet-blade used in the time of the Incus,” from Cuzco; whilst amongst the Mexican antiquities presented by Lady Webster, is to be found a “cincel de los Indios, encontrado en una sepuliura,”—where, is not stated.