Secretive and powerful, this fragment of a Neolithic axehead is believed to be a mythical stone of great symbolism.
Dated 3800 BC, it is made from Jadeite, a rare greenish stone quarried high in the Italian Alps. It is one of only five similar axeheads ever found in Britain. Remarkably, it was discovered in 1964 by archaeologists excavating a Neolithic settlement at High Peak, near Sidmouth in Devon. The unbroken edges are sharp and very smooth as if it was never used, yet it has been carefully polished to reveal its beauty.
Someone also deliberately broke it. This fragment of axe was still seen as something precious, precious enough to transport to Britain. It probably arrived in Britain in around 3800 BC (some 600 years after it was made). It seems to have been treasured while in Britain, as the settlement at High Peak has been dated to around 3650 BC (150 years after the axe came to Britain and 750 years after it was made).
Perhaps there were fantastic stories associated with the journey to get it. We shall never know, but tools like this give us a glimpse of the complex lives people led in the past and help us to understand their beliefs and values.
Fragment of a Neolithic jadeite axehead
Contributed by RAMM Exeter
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About this object
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- Location
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Morbihan, Southern Brittany
- Culture
- Period
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3800 BC
- Theme
- Size
- Colour
- Material
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Comments
It is quite a decorative stone?. It is like the beginnings of human art.
(Richard from Exeter, in a Moving Here session organised by RAMM Exeter)
Fascinating object. The antiquity of these things is so great you can hardly imagine it.... I don't know what they'd be doing with an axe every day. It might have been someone who had travelled further than his great-grandfather or even taken prisoner near us as a slave.
(Margaret Hammond, painter, in a Moving Here session organised by RAMM Exeter)
You can see it looks like part of an axe. There's craftsmanship - it's smooth, polished. And it looks strong. It could be anything, though. It would be useful to see a picture of what it would have looked like whole.
(Anil Lee, moved to Exeter from Istanbul in 1988, in a Moving Here session organised by RAMM Exeter)
It's nice. It's got a bit of weight. It would be good to know how long [it had] been in Sidmouth - maybe just 20 minutes before the archaeologists. There's a cartoon I like with two cavemen walking in the forest, and one says to the other, "Remember to scatter the arrowheads for the archaeologists to find."
(Anne-Flore Laloe, historical geographer and French interpreter, in a Moving Here session organised by RAMM Exeter)