IN MILITARY OPERATIONS. 369 III. — Another recent discovery is that which has been already brought before the Archaeological Institute by my tiiend Mr. S. P. Pratt.^ The Spanish celt, which he exhibited last January, has been presented by him to the British Museum. It is 1 8 centimetres ( = 7 inches) long, the blade alone being 12 centimetres ; its edge is 4^ centimetres in breadth. It belongs to Mr. Du Noyer's 4th class. It has a loop on each side, and by means of these loops it was, when first discovered, firmly attached by thongs to a straight handle of wood. On my asking Mr. Pratt whether the handle was straight or crooked, he said, that ac- cording to the information he had obtained, it was straight, the instrument having been fitted to be used as a crowbar, not as a hatchet.^ In the annexed wood-cut this instrument is reduced to half its real dimensions. It wiU be observed, that it is slender com- t pared with a great proportion of the celts j found elsewhere. Indeed, many examples / might be produced of bronze celts four or ( ^^ ^ five times the weight of this, and at the same time better adapted by their form to act as levers or wedges. If, therefore, the celt brouo-ht to lio-ht bv Mr. Pratt was laro-e and strong enough to subvert natural strata of coal and sand-stone, many of those preserved in our museums must have sufficed, not only to destroy earth-works, but to loosen the courses of brick and stone in artificial fortifica- tions. IV. — If celts were used in mining, we cannot wonder that they should be employed also in digging, as well as in other operations connected with agriculture and gardening. in the Assyrian bas-reliefs. This frag- ment consists of bronze scales or plates, in form precisely like those of the bas- reliefs, stitched upon leather. It bears the name of Sheshonk, the Sliisliak of Scripture. The warriors in Egyptian paint- ings sometimes wear the same cuirass. Dr. Layard found at Niniroud an iron lielmet, the fragments of w Inch arc in the Britisli Museum, and which was exactly VOL. VI. like those worn by the three Assyrian soldiers. ' Archaeological Journal, vol. v., p. 69.
- The remains of the stick were in one
of three bronze celts with loops on the sides, which were found in one of the Irish Crannoges : Ardicuologlcal Journal, vol. iii., pp. 4G, 47 : likewise in some of those mentioned in Lord Ellesmere's " Guide to NorUierrt A rchacology" London, 1 848, p. 59. 3d
