A mattock is a hand tool used for digging, prying, and chopping. Similar to the

pickaxe A pickaxe, pick-axe, or pick is a generally T-shaped hand tool used for prying. Its head is typically metal, attached perpendicularly to a longer handle, traditionally made of wood, occasionally metal, and increasingly fiberglass. A stand ...

, it has a long handle and a stout head which combines either a vertical

axe An axe ( sometimes ax in American English; see spelling differences) is an implement that has been used for millennia to shape, split and cut wood, to harvest timber, as a weapon, and as a ceremonial or heraldic symbol. The axe has ma ...

blade with a horizontal

adze An adze (; alternative spelling: adz) is an ancient and versatile cutting tool similar to an axe but with the cutting edge perpendicular to the handle rather than parallel. Adzes have been used since the Stone Age. They are used for smoothing ...

(cutter mattock), or a pick and an adze (pick mattock). A cutter mattock is similar to a Pulaski used in fighting fires. It is also commonly known in North America as a "grub axe".

Description

A mattock has a shaft, typically made of wood, which is long. The head consists of two ends, opposite each other and separated by a central eye. A mattock head typically weighs . The form of the head determines the kind and uses of the mattock: * A ''cutter mattock'' combines the functions of an

and

, with its axe blade oriented vertically and longer adze horizontally. * A ''pick mattock'' combines the function of a pick and adze, with a pointed end opposite an adze blade. Both are used for

grubbing Grubbing or clearing is the removal of trees, shrubs, stumps and rubbish from a site. This is often at the site where a transportation or utility corridor, a road or power line, an edifice or a garden is to be constructed. Grubbing is performed fo ...

in hard soils and rocky terrain, with the pick mattock having the advantage of a superior penetrating tool over the cutter mattock, which excels at cutting roots.

Uses

Mattocks are "the most versatile of hand-planting tools". They can be used to chop into the ground with the adze and pull the soil towards the user, opening a slit to plant into. They can also be used to dig holes for planting into, and are particularly useful where there is a thick layer of matted

sod Sod, also known as turf, is the upper layer of soil with the grass growing on it that is often harvested into rolls. In Australian and British English, sod is more commonly known as ''turf'', and the word "sod" is limited mainly to agricult ...

. The use of a mattock can be tiring because of the effort needed to drive the blade into the ground, and the amount of bending and stooping involved. The adze of a mattock is useful for digging or

hoeing A hoe is an ancient and versatile agricultural and horticultural hand tool used to shape soil, remove weeds, clear soil, and harvest root crops. Shaping the soil includes piling soil around the base of plants (hilling), digging narrow furrow ...

, especially in hard soil. Cutter mattocks ( sw, jembe-shoka) are used in rural Africa for removing stumps from fields, including unwanted banana suckers.

History

As a simple but effective tool, mattocks have a long history. Their shape was already established by the

Bronze Age The Bronze Age is a historic period, lasting approximately from 3300 BC to 1200 BC, characterized by the use of bronze, the presence of writing in some areas, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the second pri ...

Asia Minor Anatolia, tr, Anadolu Yarımadası), and the Anatolian plateau, also known as Asia Minor, is a large peninsula in Western Asia and the westernmost protrusion of the Asian continent. It constitutes the major part of modern-day Turkey. The re ...

and

ancient Greece Ancient Greece ( el, Ἑλλάς, Hellás) was a northeastern Mediterranean civilization, existing from the Greek Dark Ages of the 12th–9th centuries BC to the end of classical antiquity ( AD 600), that comprised a loose collection of cult ...

. According to Sumerian mythology, the mattock was invented by the god

Enlil Enlil, , "Lord f theWind" later known as Elil, is an ancient Mesopotamian god associated with wind, air, earth, and storms. He is first attested as the chief deity of the Sumerian pantheon, but he was later worshipped by the Akkadians, Bab ...

. Mattocks ( el, μάκελλα) are the most commonly depicted tool in

Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...

manuscripts of

Hesiod Hesiod (; grc-gre, Ἡσίοδος ''Hēsíodos'') was an ancient Greek poet generally thought to have been active between 750 and 650 BC, around the same time as Homer. He is generally regarded by western authors as 'the first written poet ...

's ''

Works and Days ''Works and Days'' ( grc, Ἔργα καὶ Ἡμέραι, Érga kaì Hēmérai)The ''Works and Days'' is sometimes called by the Latin translation of the title, ''Opera et Dies''. Common abbreviations are ''WD'' and ''Op''. for ''Opera''. is a ...

''. Mattocks made from antlers first appear in the

British Isles The British Isles are a group of islands in the North Atlantic Ocean off the north-western coast of continental Europe, consisting of the islands of Great Britain, Ireland, the Isle of Man, the Inner and Outer Hebrides, the Northern Isles, ...

in the Late

Mesolithic The Mesolithic (Greek: μέσος, ''mesos'' 'middle' + λίθος, ''lithos'' 'stone') or Middle Stone Age is the Old World archaeological period between the Upper Paleolithic and the Neolithic. The term Epipaleolithic is often used synonymous ...

. They were probably used chiefly for digging, and may have been related to the rise of

agriculture Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled people to ...

. Mattocks made of whalebone were used for tasks including

flensing Flensing is the removing of the blubber or outer integument of whales, separating it from the animal's meat. Processing the blubber (the subcutaneous fat) into whale oil was the key step that transformed a whale carcass into a stable, transpor ...

– stripping blubber from the carcass of a

whale Whales are a widely distributed and diverse group of fully aquatic placental marine mammals. As an informal and colloquial grouping, they correspond to large members of the infraorder Cetacea, i.e. all cetaceans apart from dolphins and ...

– by the broch people of

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...

and by the

Inuit Inuit (; iu, ᐃᓄᐃᑦ 'the people', singular: Inuk, , dual: Inuuk, ) are a group of culturally similar indigenous peoples inhabiting the Arctic and subarctic regions of Greenland, Labrador, Quebec, Nunavut, the Northwest Territories ...

Etymology

The word ''

mattock A mattock is a hand tool used for digging, prying, and chopping. Similar to the pickaxe, it has a long handle and a stout head which combines either a vertical axe blade with a horizontal adze (cutter mattock), or a pick and an adze (pick mat ...

'' is of unclear origin; one theory traces it from Proto-Germanic, from Proto-Indo-European. There are no clear cognates in other

Germanic languages The Germanic languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family spoken natively by a population of about 515 million people mainly in Europe, North America, Oceania and Southern Africa. The most widely spoken Germanic language, Engli ...

, and similar words in various

Celtic languages The Celtic languages ( usually , but sometimes ) are a group of related languages descended from Proto-Celtic. They form a branch of the Indo-European language family. The term "Celtic" was first used to describe this language group by Edward ...

are borrowings from the English (e.g. cy, matog, ir, matóg, gd, màdog). However, there are proposed cognates in Old High German and Middle High German, and more speculatively with words in

Balto-Slavic languages The Balto-Slavic languages form a branch of the Indo-European family of languages, traditionally comprising the Baltic and Slavic languages. Baltic and Slavic languages share several linguistic traits not found in any other Indo-European branc ...

, including

Old Church Slavonic Old Church Slavonic or Old Slavonic () was the first Slavic languages, Slavic literary language. Historians credit the 9th-century Byzantine Empire, Byzantine missionaries Saints Cyril and Methodius with Standard language, standardizing the lan ...

' and Lithuanian ', and even Sanskrit. It may be cognate to or derived from the unattested

Vulgar Latin Vulgar Latin, also known as Popular or Colloquial Latin, is the range of non-formal Register (sociolinguistics), registers of Latin spoken from the Crisis of the Roman Republic, Late Roman Republic onward. Through time, Vulgar Latin would evolve ...

', meaning club or cudgel. The ''

New English Dictionary The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' (''OED'') is the first and foundational historical dictionary of the English language, published by Oxford University Press (OUP). It traces the historical development of the English language, providing a com ...

'' of 1906 interpreted ''mattock'' as a

diminutive A diminutive is a root word that has been modified to convey a slighter degree of its root meaning, either to convey the smallness of the object or quality named, or to convey a sense of intimacy or endearment. A (abbreviated ) is a word-formati ...

, but there is no root to derive it from, and no semantic reason for the diminutive formation. Forms such as ''mathooke'', ''motthook'' and ''mathook'' were produced by

folk etymology Folk etymology (also known as popular etymology, analogical reformation, reanalysis, morphological reanalysis or etymological reinterpretation) is a change in a word or phrase resulting from the replacement of an unfamiliar form by a more famili ...

. Although used to prepare whale blubber, which the Inuit call "''mattaq''", no such connection is known. While the noun ''mattock'' is attested from

Old English Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, Anglo ...

onwards, the

transitive verb A transitive verb is a verb that accepts one or more objects, for example, 'cleaned' in ''Donald cleaned the window''. This contrasts with intransitive verbs, which do not have objects, for example, 'panicked' in ''Donald panicked''. Transiti ...

"to mattock" or "to mattock up" first appeared in the mid-17th century.

References

{{Garden tools Mechanical hand tools Gardening tools Forestry tools

Description

Uses

History

Etymology

See also

References