Description (Labels & Markings)
Historic label adhered to adze: 'Fig 12'

Event Date
Author: maa

Description (Labels & Markings)
John Evans label adhered to adze: 'SINGHBHUM. Bengal. Valentine Ball. F.G.S.'
Event Date
Author: Imogen Gunn (admin)

Context (Other owners)
Formerly in Sir John Evan's Collection.
Event Date
Author: Katrina Dring

Context (Analysis)
Valentine Ball identifies this axe as 'made of a black igneous rock, which shews a minute crystalline structure and can be readily scratched with a knife' (1875, p. 119).
Event Date 1875
Author: Imogen Gunn (admin)

Context (References)
Ball, Valentine. (1875). 'On some stone implements of the Burmese type, found in Pargana Dhalbhum, district of Singhbhum, Chotanagpur division'. Proceedings of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, pp. 118-120. Pl. II.2
Event Date 1875
Author: Imogen Gunn (admin)

Context (Other owners)
According to Valentine Ball (1875, pp. 118-119), this adze was given to him by Mr Ritchie, the Superintendent of Police, in January 1875. Ball notes that it 'has no particular history attached to it. It was obtained [by Ritchie] from a villager who could only say that his father - now dead - had found it somewhere in the jungle'. Ritchie has therefore been added to the Source field; his first name is currently unknown.
Event Date 1/1875
Author: Imogen Gunn (admin)

Context (Display)
Exhibited by Valentine Ball at the 2 June 1875 meeting of the Asiatic Society of Bengal.
Event Date 2/6/1875
Author: Imogen Gunn (admin)

Description (Physical description)
Catalogue card: 'Shouldered adze. Square shoulders about 1/3 down length, reducing the butt to a long, broad tang.'
Event Date 1939
Author: maa

Description (Physical description)
Ground and polished stone adze with angular shoulders. Square sides with a rectangular cross-section and a straight cutting edge; rectangular tang with chamfered edges and a square butt; cutting edge worn or ground; black to dark grey stone. Chips missing from the cutting edge.
Event Date 17/10/2023
Author: Katrina Dring

Context (Amendments / updates)
There was previously no information in the Period field; Dr Sudeshna Guha identified the axe as Neolithic and the Period field has been updated accordingly.
Event Date 17/12/2025
Author: Imogen Gunn (admin)