[David McElrea]

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