I Found A Celt! And didn't even know it.

[argohunter]

I have been going thru my finds for the year. I try to keep my stuff sorted by site, then by what type of artifact. I have this in with my knives and scrappers from this site. It was found a little over a month ago. It had 1 edge worked, that's all I paved attention to. I thought it was strange to be made from hematite, but I never thought twice about it. I had my stuff laid out, and my old lady came thru, looked at my pike and asked me when I found the ax. I thought she was crazy till I got to looking at it. Now I can see that it has a great polished bit. It was worked and then polished. This is my 1 complete celt or anything like it. I could be wrong about it. Any opinions or ideas would be great. Thank you in advance.

Chris








I can post any more pictures that are needed. I just want to know what it is.

[Micah]

Looks like a hematite celt or adze to me. Congrats on re-finding it.

[argohunter]

Thanks for your opinion. It's funny because I found 2 broken pole ends of celt earlier this year, and I wanted to find a complete 1 all year. Mabey I did find 1 and not even know it. I guess it pays to keep some of the "rocks" you find. Haha
Chris

[Steve Valentine]

Looks like a nice little Hematite Adz to me. Nice find, or refind. lol

[lillyput]

Very nice tool. You never know what you will find in the junker box or in that pile outside ya keep adding to. Problem - getting to the bottom of the piles.

[shartis]

That's a great find. Not many around my parts

[argohunter]

There are not many hard stone artifacts in this area either. That's why I didn't even realize what it was til today.

[Steve Valentine]

Also, after looking at it a lot closer I don't think it's Hematite. I may be wrong but it looks just like the material that the Hoes from my area are made from and it's called Waverly Sandstone.

Here's some picture of some of my Hoes so you can see the similarity of the material. Your piece looks to have the same striations in the stone as these do.

[Mackenzie]

These tiny "axes" always brought a chuckle to me trying to imagine someone trying to chop something with them. Where the haft go? Sure they could cut a little slot in the wooden handle and stick it in .75" and then you got, ah... how much cutting surface left? to do what? I mean was there a shortage of rocks at the time where they couldn't find the bigger rocks to make a more reasonable working tool? I really think these had some other use, particularly the first one, such as hide scrapers or something else. After talking with archaeologists I found they don't know either. Just a thought for what its worth.