Whatsit Wednesday: Hand axe of Kesselt

What do you think of when you think of a fist? A fist might be used for various things, but I think first of using it as a weapon. When one gets angry, someone might tell you to put your fists away. A person might stand with balled fists when they are ready to fight. So hearing about a fist axe might give a clear picture of what is meant - except that it doesn’t. 

Our town in Belgium is made up of seven little villages. We live in Neerharen, our colleagues live in Veldwezelt and on the edge of the whole conglomeration is the farming town of Kesselt. They also have a large brickworks there. But long ago, this was one of the places that people came across the river and started settling. And in settling, they used a “fist axe” or as the English language would generally say, a “hand axe”. 

The “hand axe of Kesselt” is well-known because it is probably one of the oldest tools found in all of the Benelux. It was made and used by the Neanderthals or earlier. These are the people who first populated this area. The hand axe is made of silex or flint and can be created in 15 minutes by those who know what they are doing. The hand axe of Kesselt is in the Gallo-Roman Museum in Tongeren. 

A hand axe was multifunctional. They could be used to file things down, to cut up animals that had been hunted, to dig up edible roots or to work wood to a useful shape. It find in the hand - or more specifically in Dutch, the fist. There are very few examples of these tools in the Netherlands except in South Limburg and the area around Maastricht. Kesselt is separated from Maastricht only by the Albert Canal which was dug around 1930. 

The Belgians continue to be a people who are very creative in how they use their hands and their tools. The saying goes that every Belgian is “born with a brick in his stomach” meaning that they all want to build their own house. But they have moved on from “fist axes” to modern tools in building these house - although they still use bricks.