Some of the crescent-shaped[1350] blades have almost similar teeth on the straighter edge, and some of these are polished on both faces as if by being worked backwards and forwards in a groove, and have no polish between the teeth, such as would result from their being used crossways like combs. From this I infer that such specimens at all events have been used for cutting purposes, and not, as may have been the case with others, as instruments[1351] for dressing skins, or heckling flax or hemp. As has been pointed out by Professor J. J. Steenstrup, many of these crescent-shaped blades seem to have had their convex edges inserted in wooden handles, which would render them convenient for use as saws. Their action on wood, though not rapid, is effectual, and with the aid of a little water I have with one of them cut through a stick of dry sycamore seven-eighths of an inch in diameter in seven minutes. In Thomsen’s[1352] opinion, these implements with teeth were intended for saws. Nilsson[1353] also regards some of them in the same light. The form seems to be confined to the North of Germany and Scandinavia.[1354] They are frequently found in pairs, one being smaller than the other. Mr. T. Wright,[1355] after engraving one of these Danish saws as a British specimen, remarks that several have been found in different parts of England. I believe this statement to be entirely without foundation, so far as this particular form is concerned. I have left what I originally wrote upon this subject with very little modification, but Prof. Flinders Petrie’s[1356] discoveries have thrown a flood of light upon the purposes for which serrated flints were used. We now know that the Egyptian sickle was formed of a curved piece of wood in shape much like the jaw-bone of a horse, armed along the inner edge with a series of serrated flint flakes, cemented into a groove. Not only are there numerous pictorial representations of such instruments going back so far as the 4th dynasty, but the sickles themselves have been found in a complete state, as well as numbers of the serrated flakes that formed their edge. Similar flakes, which no doubt served the same purpose, were found by Schliemann on the site of Troy.[1357] Others have been found at Helouan.[1358] The whole subject has been treated exhaustively by Mr. Spurrell,[1359] to whose paper the reader is referred.[1360] Dr. Munro is, however, inclined to regard most European examples as saws. I now pass on to an instrument of very frequent occurrence in Britain. |298| CHAPTER XIII. SCRAPERS.