File:Macehead (plan) (FindID 624930).jpg

English: Fragment of a quartzite ovoid macehead, semi-circular in plan and profile and plano-convex in section, with a mottled grey and 'port wine stain' colouration. Half of the perforation or shafthole remains, which is circular in plan and 20 mm in diameter. The shafthole would have held a wooden handle or haft to complete the mace, and would have been bored by using sand and a drill. The shafthole is an hourglass shape in profile, suggesting that it has been drilled from both sides, and is 38 mm in height. This shape might have improved hafting, especially if the wooden haft or handle was swollen once it was held in the centre. The macehead is missing the other half of the implement, which would have been more elongated from the edge of the shafthole to the rounded terminus. This missing end would have been used for hammering, or for impact as a weapon, and is was likely broken off in use, after hitting a hard surface. The macehead is derived from a local beach pebble of very pure meta-quartzite, which would already have had this ovoid shape. Although it has some purple staining, it is not comparable with the quartzite of the Permian Pebble Bed of Devon. Narrow quartzitic beds do occur in some Cornish rocks but the findspot on granite suggests that it could be a Pleistocene erratic (Dr Roger Taylor pers comm).

Roe (1979) illustrates a similar Ovoid C macehead on page 33, Fig.9, letter c, which is dated from the Late Neolithic, as some are associated with grooved ware, to the Early Bronze Age, as others are associated with Food Vessels.