...is born.
A Celto-Dacian sickle loosely inspired by a find in Varna (after Georgieva 1992)
Made from some crucible steel I found in the woods, I just forged it out because I wanted a sickle for harvesting herbs and because I wanted to know how versatile the design would be. In China sickles are used for just about everything from harvesting to shaving. Viktor, the Kazakhian senior blacksmith in the Bethaus smithy, also used a sickle for woodworking, harvesting, mushroom hunting and much more than I´d care to mention. Likewise I would think of a use of these historical knives. For iron, and steel, were precious, and the tools at hand were put up to multiple uses to save resources. When you look at the original, you can see that it has a relatively short tang, which looks like a full tang. Since the blade is some 10 cm long and the handle just some 5-8cm it can be argued that this is the case either to save steel or because there was some law to be abided by. I could not find anything about this. What is safe to say, however, that this sickle type was a variant of the famed sica of Dacian provenience.
The sica gained fame as an everyday tool as well as the weapon of choice of back-alley cut-throats. Also, there are implications that smaller versions were used as kitchen knives in the Roman empire. This would not have been the case if those blade shapes, albeit with a more pronounced tip, were not practical. With ùlenklawe,
I found out that it gives you an almost frightening amount of purchase when cutting and slashing while still providing the possibility to do precise cutting such as dicing onions and stuff. It cuts 1.5 cm branches in one go! It was modelled after the knife in the picture second from below:
(source: archive.worldhistoria.com)
I am thinking about making a more accurate reconstruction of the sica found at Varna, but for starters, I look forward to just testing the general cutting capabilities of the knife I just made.
In any case, I fear you have not read the last of this style of knife... ;-)
