ABSTRACT

Craft is delimited by both a material and a psychophysical framework. Axes of higher technical skill are those where it can be positively shown that the qualities of the material they are made from were recognised. From a craft perspective there appears to be little choice in terms of material because the majority falls in the category of type I coppers and would thus have had very similar qualities. A specific quality of type IV metal is that they generally produce good castings with little porosity. Axe 141 is made of a type I copper and of poor casting quality because of severe porosity. Axe 330 is an axe fragment with a sharp, patinated breakage. It needs to be mentioned that for both axes Tobias L. Kienlin maintains they were used nonetheless, because of the sporadic grains with faint strain-lines in the metallographic samples that he interprets as use-wear.