at the decoration of certain
halberds found in Germany may have been influenced by that of the
Italian dagger.

[Illustration: Fig. 12.--Halberts from South-east Spain.]

The halberd blade can be distinguished from the broad dagger by the
shape of the handle, which is curved or indented in the case of the
dagger, but straight across in the case of the halberd. There is,
however, another point. The hindmost rivets, both in the case of the
blades with four rivets and those with three only, are shorter than
those in front of them. The shortness of the end-rivets and slope of
the heads imply that the handle was rounded off behind the blade, as
would be the case with a transverse shaft. So there appears no room to
doubt the manner in which the long scythe-shaped blades were mounted
on handles, though some uncertainty was formerly expressed on the
subject. The Irish halberd-blades were evidently mounted at right
angles to the shaft in the same way as most of the Continental blades,
as can be seen from the straight-across marks of the handle, which can
be traced on several examples.

[Illustration: Fig. 13.--Rock Markings, Maritime Alps.]

From the analyses of copper halberds, it will be seen that the tin
varies from .18 to .31 per cent. We may therefore conclude that the
copper halberds are simply coarse or unrefined copper from similar
ores to the copper celts; and that the copper implements found in
Ireland may contain up to about .5 per cent. of tin. An increasing
percentage of tin was not found in any of the copper celts, or,
contrary to expectation, in the copper halberds; but, judging from the
widespread use of copper implements in Ireland, from which it may be
inferred that copper remained in use for a considerable time, it seems
probable that bronze was introduced as an alloy of a known percentage
of tin. As relatively few analyses of Irish bronze implements have
been made, it is not possible at present to come to any fixed
conclusions on the subject of the introduction of bronze into Ireland.

[Illustration: Fig. 14.--Stone Pick from the Bann.]

[Illustration: Fig. 15.--Deer Horn Pick.]

Also, in the case of the halberds, the great rarity of any specimens
of bronze blades which can be classified as halberds indicates that
the form of implement practically ceased to be used when bronze came
into use in Ireland. As the copper celts show a gradual transition
from stone to metal forms, it seems reasonable to