Piece of History by B.A., BladeOps Writing Contest Round 2

The knife may be considered by some to be one of the first tools ever conceived. The dude carving the wheel probably had his flint knapped mammoth poker hanging from his waist. It has been an essential part of living since prehistoric times. Without it, food procurement wasn’t even an option. Even today, there would be no way to get food if we didn’t have a good set of cutlery. Think about it. We’d all be eating carrots for the rest of our lives. We’ve come a long way since then. In the medieval ages in Europe, the host wouldn’t even supply utensils to their house guest because they couldn’t afford extras. Everyone would carry around their own knife to use because forks hadn’t been invented yet. True story. In 1669, King Louis XIV decreed that any dinner knives had to be ground down to a nub because of the violent potential at the dinner table, and thus, the butter knife was born. Now you know.

In my opinion, the defining of the blade enabled the rise of empires and the changing of the world. It is how you can determine where a civilization is at technologically. Every culture that has existed has had to put it in to practice because, as I said, it is a necessary tool. The Native Americans were overrun because they had never been introduced to steel. The Romans dominated over everyone because their ingenuity was unmatched. The knife was the foundation from which everything else was born. In ancient times, it took a great amount of time to create an edge out of a solid rock. Owning a knife was an element of great pride for them. Often they would be decorated with ornaments and engravings, making them a real work of art. It was a part of them, and they respected it as a something that literally gave and took life.

The appearance of metallurgy brought a whole new age to knife work. The first metal knives were double edge daggers made from copper. Eventually these evolved into larger weapons like swords and then, in turn, our modern day versions. It wasn’t until the early 1900s that stainless steel was invented and the knife world was taken by storm. Literally countless years of perfection have gotten us to this point. It’s a good day to own a knife.