AXE

Jadeite axehead, tear-drop shaped in plan and lozenge-shaped in profile and section, with patches of glassy polish and iron staining.

The axehead was analysed non-destructively, using scattered reflectance spectroradiometry, in October 2007 as part of an international French project, Projet JADE, covering all axeheads of Alpine rock in Europe. The project is directed by Dr Pierre Petrequin, until recently of CNRS and the University of Besancon. The analysis was undertaken by Dr Michel Errera (then of the Musée Royal de l'Afrique Centrale, Tervuren, Belgium) at the CNRS Laboratory at Le Frasnois in the Jura, France. Dr Errera compared the results with those for other Alpine axeheads, and for raw material specimens and working debris from the Alps.

The results confirm that it is indeed of a jadeite, from the Italian Piemonte. From the raw material samples that Dr. Errera has analysed, particularly one from Oncino, in the foothills of Mont Viso, in the North Italian Alps, offers a reasonable match. The shape of the axehead is interesting which may well result from the reworking of a larger original. There is only a restricted patch of glassy polish and the blade area lacks this high polish. Originally the parent piece may well have been detached from the outcrop or boulder by means of fire-setting, and then the roughout would have been sawn. The slightly stubby, truncated shape of this specimen makes sense in terms of modification from a larger original. Perhaps the parent boulder had been smallish and fully worked out, so that is why there are not several close matches among the many hundreds of axeheads that he has analysed. The axe is a type Puy which was the latest type to be manufactured and to travel a long distance, probably manufactured around 4000 BC but it may well have arrived in England in the first couple of centuries after 4000 BC." Information provided by Dr Alison Sheridan, the UK and Ireland Co-ordinator of Projet JADE, based at the National Museums Scotland.