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Details
LOT 1512
Stone Age Polished Axehead
NEOLITHIC PERIOD, CIRCA 6TH-4TH MILLENNIUM B.C.
6 3/4 in. (771 grams, 17 cm).
With polished brown-black surface, eccentric curved cutting edge, tapering rounded butt; remains of an old label to verso. [No Reserve]
Provenance
From a collection acquired on the UK art market from various auction houses and collections mostly before 2000.
From an important Cambridgeshire estate; thence by descent.
Literature
Cf. MacGregor, A. (ed.), Antiquities from Europe and the Near East in the Collection of Lord MacAlpine of West Green, Oxford, 1987, item 4.31, for type.
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Most scholars consider these as symbols of the cult of fertility and evidence of the existence of a matriarchal society as a form of organisation of the earliest human society. The people of the Stone Age may have considered figures such as this to represent women and mothers with their life-giving powers, or as depictions of the ancestors.