Hands on Tauranga offers students stimulating and original learning opportunities with real museum objects that support the New Zealand curriculum at primary and secondary school level.
A type 2A stone adze, quadrangular in shape and very smooth with symmetrical sides. No signs of flaking. There is a chip on the cutting edge lefthand side.
The most important tools used by early Maori were adzes (toki). These stone adze heads were lashed to a wooden handle and used in working wood, including canoe building.
These early adzes had a well-defined butt/toe end to allow grip for lashing to a handle.
The majority were made from basalt or other hard rock, such as adzite. This is a very tough, fine-grained metamorphic rock, also called baked argillite or greywacke, which is hard sandstone.
date: 1700
maximum dimension: 82mm, 20 grams
subject area: Maori and Pacifica, The Arts, Social Science, Technology
subject themes: New Zealand, Maori, Tools
handling collection number: HC44
