Sickle, or crescent-knife
- Title:
- Sickle, or crescent-knife
- Collection:
- Selections from the Cornell Anthropology Collections
- Date:
- ca. 3950-1700 BCE
- Site:
- Aarhus, Arhus, Denmark
- Location:
- Aarhus, Arhus, Denmark
- Country:
- Denmark
- ID Number:
- Anthr1882_007_0190_01
- Old Catalog Number:
- 882.7.190
- File Name:
- Anthr1882_007_0190_01.jpg
- Culture:
- Danish (culture or style)
Neolithic - Style/Period:
- Neolithic
- Work Type:
- sickles
harvesting knives - Materials/Techniques:
- stone
flint (rock) - Subject:
- denmark
antiquities (object genre)
Neolithic
scandinavia
tools
prehistoric
sickles
prehistoric
knives
prehistoric - Measurement:
- 18 x 3.6 x 0.9 (centimeters)
- Description:
- Sickle, or crescent-knife. Mottled, medium-brown flint with greenish band along half of the curved edge. Well pressure-flaked on a large, thin blade to produce a semi-lunate knife form. 19th-century handwriting (now almost obliterated) read "Aarhus"
still visible and partly legible is "(j[?] [subscript]2 L [subscript]2". This example is slightly thinner at the end that has broken, and there is a faint line approximately 1/3 from that end where the color abruptly gets slightly darker and more grey-green
this seems likely to represent signs of hafting. Along with the slight use-polish along the straight edge, the impression is of a sickle mounted into a shaft-handle at a right angle. - Bibliography:
- Jørgen Jensen, The Prehistory of Denmark (Methuen, 1982
Deborah Olausson & Helle Vandkilde, Form, Function & Context: Material Culture Studies in Scandinavian Archaeology (Almqvist & Wiksell International, 2000)
Christopher Tilley, An Ethnography of the Neolithic: Early Prehistoric Societies in Southern Scandinavia (Cambridge, 1996)
Anders Fischer & Kristian Kristiansen (eds), The Neolithisation of Denmark: 150 Years of Debrate (JR Collis, 2002)
Helle Vandkilde, From Stone to Bronze: The Metalwork of the Late Neolithic and Earliest Bronze Age in Denmark (Jutland Archaeological Society, 1996)
"The Danish Stone Ages: An Outline". John Whittaker (1974)
Becker, C.J. 1945 "New Finds of Hafted Neolithic Celts." Acta Archaeologica, 16. 1949 "Hafted Neolithic Celts II." Acta Archaeologica, 20. 1956 "The Date of the Neolithic Settlement at Trelleborg." Acta Archaeologica, 27. 1971 "Late Paleolithic Finds from Denmark." Antiquity, 33.
Oldeberg, A. 1932 "Some Contributions to the Earliest History of the Sickle." Acta Archaeologica, 3.
Rud, Morsen, ed. 1966 Jeg Ser Pa Oldsager.
Sandklef, W. 1935 "Are Scandinavian Flint Saws to be considered as Leaf-Knives?” Acta Archaeologica, 5. - Archival Collection:
- Danish Neolithic stone tools
- Format:
- Image
- Rights:
- The images in the Collection 'Selections from the Cornell Anthropology Collections' are protected by copyright, and the copyright holders are Cornell University Library and the Department of Anthropology. Physical artifacts from the Cornell Anthropology Collections were photographed by Cornell University Library in 2012-13 for inclusion in this image collection. Cornell is providing access to the materials for research and personal use. The written permission of any copyright and other rights holders is required for distribution, reproduction, or other use that extends beyond what is authorized by fair use and other statutory exemptions. Responsibility for making an independent legal assessment of an item and securing any necessary permissions ultimately rests with persons desiring to use the item.
Cornell would like to learn more about items in this collection and to hear from individuals or institutions that have any additional information. This collection is funded by an Arts and Sciences Grant to Frederic W. Gleach, Curator of the Anthropology Collections. Please contact him for more information about this collection, or to request permission to use these images.