I carved this knife out of deep antler, a material widely used (with bone) for every day objects such as knives, belt buckles, sewing needles ets...
These types of knives would have been found mainly in women's grave or wealthy peoples of both sexes
I chose a style of carving from Mammen that was popular around CE 950- 1000
The Mammen style is very recognizable for its circonvoluted animal figure with lots of little dots.
The blade is Damascus steel (raindrops and fire pattern in this case) Damascus was known to the viking but the pattern would have been simpler then.
The guard and butt plate are bronze, stamped with the same type of viking designs found on knives sheaths and jewelry of the time.
I used a tool called a Foredom (a professional version of a Dremel tool) with very fine burrs and homemade bits .
I assume that in viking times it would have been made using hand tools such as nails,small knives etc.
The technique used for creating this piece came from my wood carvings background. I had to research and learn about different techniques for setting the blade into the handle, viking artisans didn't have access to drill press and couldn't fit handles on a full tang blade very easily. So the antler handle was boiled and the tang brought to be red hot in a fire, the blade is then forced into the pit of the antler handle
