Tools & tillage: a journal on the history of the implements of cultivation and other agricultural processes (6.1988/1991)

THE BLEGIND SPADE
A JUTLAND PADDLE-SPADE
IN ITS FUNCTIONAL CONTEXT
By
Mogens Schou Jorgensen

In 1954 the Prehistoric Museum of Moesgard,
Arhus, uncovered a road up to 3.5 m wide,
reinforced by stone-paving that in the Late
Iron Age had led the traffic a short distance of
only 54 metres across a water-logged valley in
Blegind c. 12 km SE of Arhus. The founda-
tion of the stone paving was a 30 cm thick
interlaced layer of branches and poles, partly
cloven, as well as twigs, brushwood and raf-
ters. Over this was a layer of gravel, and then
a pavement consisting of up to 70 cm diame-
ter cobbles. Rows of boulders up to one me-
tre at each side kept the road users off the
waterlogged soil outside. The pavement was
in turn covered by a smooth layer of gravel.
No traces or structures were visible in con-
tinuation of the ends of this short piece of
reinforced road. Indeed this was not to be
expected, since Danish roads normally consi-
sted of several parallel or intertwining wheel-
tracks outside the wetlands where there was
plenty of dry soil and space enough. Similar
stone-paved passage ways have been exca-
vated in other parts of Denmark, some of
them dated to the Late Bronze Age, but more
commonly from the Early Iron Age onwards
(Schou Jorgensen 1988).
Between the cobble stones of the Blegind-
road were found some items, including Iron
Age pottery. But between the twigs and bran-
ches of the foundation layer, there was also a
fragmented paddle-spade (Fig. 1). It was pre-

served by means of bee’s wax and dammar in
the Prehistoric Museum. But before that was
done, its shape seems to have been slightly
modified by drying. The length is now 93.1
cm. According to N. Bonde of the National
Museums’ Dept, of Natural Sciences it was
made from a branch of an elm tree. The blade
is 66 cm long, 6.4 to 7.1 cm broad, and 1.0 to
2.2 cm thick. The front side is at its bottom
end almost flat, but it becomes slightly more
hollow up to 60 cm above the bottom, where
the hollowness fades out and is confined by a
concave cord. The bottom end has been dam-
aged by two sharp cuts. The rear side is bevel-
led, producing a rather distinct median rib.
No traces of wear can be observed on the
blade. The handle, which has been broken
above, is now 27 cm long. Its lower part is
nearly oval in section but almost circular at
the broken end. Because the shaft becomes
slightly thicker at the broken end than at its
oval part, one might suggest that this rounded
part was its handle, but that it had also
continued into another paddle-shaped blade
in order to balance the tool when grasped by
two hands, similar to the Jutland double
paddle-spades published and functionally
described by Grith Lerche (1977, 1980 and
1985). But amongst these tools, of which she
has registered in total 281 one was dated to
the Late Bronze Age and three to the early
Iron Age (4th to 2nd cent. BC).