POLISHED AXEHEAD

An incomplete polished stone Langdale Tuff axehead of Neolithic date (3500-2400 BC). The handaxe is broken at the cutting edge and at the butt end. The surface of the axe is granular but smooth with a distinct blue green hue. The object is sub-rectangular in plan and tapers inward toward the butt and is sub-ovate is section with slightly flattened sides. The blade end tapers out to the sided and in along the blade edge. The axe is broken at the blade and along one side. It is possible that it has been ritually broken.
The object is a Langdale polished Axehead, called as such due to the source of the raw material the axehead is made of. The Langdale tuff's in the Lake District are soft, volcanic deposits and polished axe-heads from this source are found throughout the country. This rock type is formed from compressed volcanic ash and has a fine grained composition with infrequent crystalline inclusions. Tuff is found in Britain and Ireland in a band that runs down the Irish Sea from the Lake District (the Langdale's source Group VI), County Antrim (Ireland), through North Wales (Graig Lwyd Group VII), and into Cornwall and Devon (Groups XVI and IV respectively). Volcanic tuff is similar to flint in that it can be finely worked, ground and polished to form a variety of tools; however axes are the most common find type and were used across Northern Europe during the Neolithic period.
The tuff is typically similar to a number of axes in the collection of KendalMuseum and Tullie House Museum & Art Gallery, Carlisle, which have been petrographically tested as coming from the Langdale source (Group VI).
The length is 117mm, the width is 70mm thickness 27mm and the weight 252.82g.