Mendi fighting axe

[Tim Simmons]

At last it is in my hands. This has turned out to be a splendid addition to my collection. I am greatly surprised and pleased to find that this really super axe blade appears to be a text book example from a known quarry. I will probably have to make two posts to show all the information I have. The research comes from a paper-

" Stone Axes Factories in the Highlands of East New Guinea. Chappell, J proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 32, 1966 "

The field work being carried out 1963-64. Firstly I will post more pictures of the blade and complete axe. Secondly I will post the relevant extracts from the paper. I have not taken detail pictures of the binding which looks like tree or shrub bark.

Looking at the blade you can see the pyritized structure to the stone. This is important to identifying the souce quarry. It is a lovely big blade just right for rearranging the head of an enemy.