Side axe attributed to Jacob Sibley, late 18th century. The handle is offset, so that when the axe is swung, the cutting edge will come down to the side of the hewer’s work. The head is original but the handle has been replaced. The forged iron axe head surmounts an oak handle, for an overall length of 33 inches. Family tradition says that Sibley used this axe while working on the ship. The axe pictured below likely belonged to Jacob Sibley who headed south from Maine in 1795 to work on USS Constitution, which was being built in Edmund Hartt’s Shipyard in Boston’s North End. ![]() Different varieties of axes were used to shape timbers in shipbuilding. One tool common to ship construction is the axe. Britain was still connected by a land bridge to the continent at the time when the adze was made.Since 1795, when USS Constitution‘s keel was laid, to the current restoration, skilled craftspeople have used specialized tools to build and then restore “Old Ironsides.” These tools have evolved over time. The decoration is similar to that found on adzes from Denmark, so it may be that the maker was from that area. The fact that it was made from the long bone of an aurochs probably also made it an object to carry around with pride. This object had the power, if used properly, to transform a rough tree trunk into a usable piece of timber. It may seem odd to decorate such a functional object, but tools could have symbolic meanings too. These objects included boats, like the later Bronze Age logboat in Object File: An early Iron Age boat which would have been hollowed out using an adze, and houses. Wood is a versatile raw material and made possible the manufacture of a range of objects difficult or impossible to make out of other materials. They provided foodstuffs such as hazelnuts, which were eaten in huge quantities, and also offered an abundant source of wood. By the Mesolithic period, with the warming of the climate following the last Ice Age, Britain had become densely forested, These forests were the habitat for a wide range of animals to hunt. The cutting edge of an adze is usually at right angles to the handle and is used in a similar way to a pickaxe in order to smooth and shape a piece of wood. The cutting edge of an axe is aligned in the same direction as the handle and is used in a chopping manner. ![]() Adzes and axes are well designed for their separate purposes, and humans across the world and through time have invented both tools when they needed to chop down trees and work wood. The cutting edge, though broken, is clearly at right angles to the direction of the handle, making it an adze. ![]() This adze has a hole in one end into which a wooden handle was fitted. To tell the difference you need to work out how the tool was hafted – how the handle was attached. The importance of woodworking toolsĪdze and axe heads can look similar. It shows how its maker took advantage of materials available in the environment and of every opportunity that offered itself, using as many parts as possible of a hunted animal with each material suited to its particular job. It originally had a haft or handle, probably made of wood and secured with sinew or rawhide strips that contract and tighten when dry. The bone has been chopped at an angle to form a cutting edge. This adze is made from the long bone, perhaps the thigh, of an aurochs, the huge wild cattle that roamed the forests of Mesolithic Britain.
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