Auction house provenance, previously private collection. Aboriginal hand axes were generally made from volcanic rock. They began as large flakes, river cobbles, or cores of stone, prepared into a useable shape usually by hammer dressing then one edge was sharpened, usually by grinding. Sometimes hatchets and axes were hafted into a wooden or cane handle so they could be used for chopping and cleaving wood and bark. This example does inlcude a groove which may have been used for hafting, it shows signs of use along the bottom edge. Due to the colours of the stone, the aboriginal people may have considered this a Sacred stone object (tjuringa). A variety of natural, waterworn, shaped and painted stones were utilised throughout Australia as sacred stones. Many of these were stored in sacred places, buried beneath the ground or cached in trees, rock crevices, or the backs of caves and rock shelters. shipped royal mail tracked