Summary

During the Bronze Age, tool makers developed skills with new materials that included copper, gold and bronze (a combination of copper and tin). Using moulds, smiths could make multiple axe heads at once, unlike stone tools.
This 'Ancient celt' entered the ethnological collection (then managed by the National Gallery of Victoria) in 1892. It was procured for the collection by Augustus Wollaston Franks, Keeper of British and Medieval Antiquities and Ethnography at the British Museum, as part of an exchange initiated by the Board of Trustees of the Public Library, Museums and National Gallery of Victoria.

Bibliography
'A guide to British Prehistoric Axes', Museum of Archaeology and Anthrolopology website, Cambridge University, https://maa.cam.ac.uk/files/a_guide_to_british_prehistoric_axes_.pdf, accessed 14 October 2025.

Physical Description

A flat axe of metal alloy in the shape of a wedge with rounded edges, and striations and small pockmarks across the surface.

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