ON THE ATTRIBUTION OF THE FUNCTIONS OF “CROOKED SCYTHES” FROM THE KAMA REGION MONUMENTS (ON THE CHARACTERISTICS OF THE ECONOMIC SECTOR)
Keywords:
Glyadeno culture, Mazunino culture, Azelino culture, farming, beekeeping, knifeAbstract
The article discusses the finds of specific iron objects at the sites of the Glyadenovo, Mazunino, and Azelino cultures. These objects are short, narrow, double-edged blades with a handle set at an obtuse angle (120°) to its plane and a hook at the end. The width is consistent over almost the entire length and is 2.0–3.0 cm, and the blade is 13.0–17.0 cm long with a triangular cross-section. These objects have repeatedly attracted attention of researchers, but most of the participants in the discussion a priori assumed their military function without providing reasonable explanations or analogies, and believed that the objects were imported. Other, based on very distant similarities, believed that the objects were used as scythes for cutting grass, but neither of these explanations stand up to criticism, primarily in terms of functional efficiency. In ethnography, right up to modern life, objects of this morphology – a knife, with a pointed end, two working blades, sometimes with an triangular cross-section, a handle bent above the plane of the blade (outwardly similar to a modern construction trowel or art stack), most often with a blade length of about 12-13 cm and a total length of about 27 cm, the length of the handle, regardless of the size of the blade, is about 12 cm and is determined by the ease of grip with the palm – have been used as knives for cutting wax from honeycombs. Thus, the finds reveal another area of the economy of the ancient population of the forest zone of Eastern Europe, which has not been previously noted by researchers. The distribution of these finds in the forest zone, i.e. in the bee distribution zone, supports the theory that they were used for cutting wax from honeycombs.References
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