Info Favorites Register Log in
myArmoury.com Discussion Forums

Forum index Memberlist Usergroups Spotlight Topics Search
Forum Index > Historical Arms Talk > The Knowth Mace Head Reply to topic
This is a standard topic  
Author Message
David McElrea




Location: Canada
Joined: 26 Nov 2003

Spotlight topics: 1
Posts: 438

PostPosted: Sun 19 Dec, 2004 2:21 pm    Post subject: The Knowth Mace Head         Reply with quote

Greetings all,

I thought I'd introduce an item I am particularly fond of. I've mentioned before that an aspiration of mine is to have an arms collection ranging from the Neolithic Era through to the late Middle Ages. This is one of the pieces that I would love to have reproduced for the neolithic portion of my collection (when I have money...)

This is a flint mace head found in a passage grave at Knowth, in Ireland. A couple of things stand out.

Firstly it has a marvellously stylised human face carved onto the forward surface. This alone is well worth noting as we often think of the neolithic period as being crude. While this particular object may not be representative of all weaponry from this time, it shows that the artisans of the time were capable of creating weapons of great beauty. Also, flint is not an easy medium to work with in this way.

Secondly, the flint itself came from the Orkneys off the north of Scotland, which points to inter-island trade even in the late stone age (Similar patterns to those on the axe are found on stones around Knowth, so the mace head itself would have been carved in Ireland).

You can see the picture below.

David



 Attachment: 11.49 KB
knowth-macehead.jpg

View user's profile Send private message


Display posts from previous:   
Forum Index > Historical Arms Talk > The Knowth Mace Head
Page 1 of 1 Reply to topic
All times are GMT - 8 Hours

View previous topic :: View next topic
Jump to:  
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum
You cannot attach files in this forum
You can download files in this forum






All contents © Copyright 2003-2024 myArmoury.com — All rights reserved
Discussion forums powered by phpBB © The phpBB Group
Switch to the Basic Low-bandwidth Version of the forum