Polished Axe

Polished Axe

A large polished flint axe of Neolithic type, heavily damaged. The flint is a mottled buff orange colour with a highly polished surface. The axe tapers slightly along its length. The wider edge has several large flakes missing from the bottom, and numerous small flakes, possibly from retouching, on the top. The narrower end likewise has numerous flake scars on the top, and some evidence of cortex on the bottom surface which is rougher than the top. On the top is inscribed: "E1563 Harbonnieres France. Coll. by L.R. Blake, M.C. 1918" a reference to the axe's discovery by Capt. Lesley Russel Blake MC PM.

Such polished stone axes were produced during the French Neolithic and are common finds in the Somme river valley. Neolithic finds are uncommon for First World War collections, but similar examples are known in UK collections, including an axe discovered at Harponville, Somme, by Capt. JB Frost of the Royal Engineers in 1918, now at the Imperial War Museum in London, and an axe from Broyes, Marne, uncovered in 1918 by FW Clay of the Army Service Corps and now in the Leeds City Museum.

4500 BC - 1700 BC

Height: 33 mm

Width: 115 mm

Depth: 52 mm

Weight: 139 g

C.004.001

QM E1563

© Queensland Museum, Peter Waddington.

Collected by Capt. LR Blake MC PM, Harbonnieres, France, 1918.
Donated by the Queensland Geological Survey to the Queensland Museum, April 1922.

Queensland Museum, Brisbane

Buckley, F. (1921). Finds of Flint Implements in The Red Line Trenches At Coigneux, 1918. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society of East Anglia, 3(3), 380-388. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0958841800024522

Axe-Head. (Neolithic). [Neolithic axe-head made from flint with tapered end.]. Imperial War Museum, London. EPH 1016 = https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/30081193

Axe. (Neolithic/Bronze Age). [Flint axe polished blade.]. British Museum, London. ML.576=https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/H_ML-576

Hadnutt, N. (15 May, 2020). Digging in the archaeology collection. Queensland Museum Network Blog. https://blog.qm.qld.gov.au/2020/05/15/digging-in-the-archaeology-collection/

Queensland Museum Donor Schedule #22/69 A (1922).

Queensland Museum Ethnology Register, E1563.

Bostyn, F., Hachem, L., Joseph, F., Hamon, C., & Maigrot, Y. (2016). L’apport du site d’habitat de Conty «?ZAC Dunant?» (Somme) à la connaissance de la culture de Cerny. Bulletin de La Société Préhistorique Française, 113(2), 291–332. http://www.jstor.org/stable/24914999

CORDIER, G., & BOCQUET, A. (1998). Le dépôt de la Bégude-de-Mazenc (Drôme) et les dépôts de haches néolithiques en France. Note complémentaire. Bulletin de La Société Préhistorique Française, 95(2), 221–238. http://www.jstor.org/stable/27921439

P.004

Mr James Donaldson