World's first Swiss Army knife revealed - made 1800 years before today's version (Pics)

Daily Mail ^ | January 30, 2010 | Daily Mail Reporter

[bogusname]

The world's first Swiss Army knife' has been revealed - made 1,800 years before its modern counterpart. An intricately designed Roman implement, which dates back to 200AD, it is made from silver but has an iron blade. It features a spoon, fork as well as a retractable spike, spatula and small tooth-pick.

Experts believe the spike may have been used by the Romans to extract meat from snails.

[Focault's Pendulum]

This thing has a fork 1000 years before that.

That's actually a comb. The Romans must have had some really bad hair days.

[Professional Engineer]

That’s pretty spiffy.

[handy old one]

Thought you might like to see this.

[Eaker]

Neat!

[TruthConquers]

That same thought crossed my mind as well.

Where did that fork come from? It’s too early for forks!

But, if I remember right, it is the Italians that are credited with inventing the fork. Maybe forks disappeared in the later years of the Roman decline, and were reinvented again? Or someone found one of those ancient multiple pocket knives and copied the fork hundreds of years later.

[wildbill]

The fork makes it suspicious. The article doesn’t say how or where it was found or in what circumstances.

Maybe this is Mr. Elsener’s long lost prototype.

But in my heart of hearts i hope it is truly ancient.

[sionnsar]

Thanks to Professional Engineer for the ping.

Geezer Geek ping.

This is a very low-volume ping list (typically days to weeks between pings).
FReepmail sionnsar if you want on or off this list.

[Hot Tabasco]

The title is misleading, thats a Roman army knife not a Swiss army knife.........Swiss army knives have the cork screw and cheese cutter on them.

[Richard Kimball]

We’re told that forks didn’t exist until the 13th century, give or take. This thing has a fork 1000 years before that. Go figure!

Practically anything that's presented as fact has "as far as we know" tacked onto the end. My grandmother taught me this, showing me a science textbook from her youth that said there were seven planets.

[Zuben Elgenubi]

[Hegemony Cricket]

Pretty cool thanks!

[bert]

For the record, a trident is a large fork.

[LonePalm]

No, it's a fork.

The Romans had forks but the were most commonly used in food preparation rather than eating.

The chef is here. Good eats for everyone.

'La bonne cuisine est la base du véritable bonheur.' - Auguste Escoffier
(Good food is the foundation of genuine happiness.)
LonePalm, le Républicain du verre cassé (The Broken Glass Republican)

[null and void]

Hmmm..., wonder if they used the small spatula for scraping out the insides of their hash pipes....

More likely it was an ear scoop.

Pre Q-tips people made do...

[SunkenCiv]

· join list or digest · view topics · view or post blog · bookmark · post a topic · subscribe ·
	Gods Graves Glyphs	Thanks MNJohnnie. And thanks Joya for the link posted in another thread. To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list. GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother, and Ernest_at_the_Beach
·Dogpile · Archaeologica · LiveScience · Archaeology · Biblical Archaeology Society · · Discover · Nat Geographic · Texas AM Anthro News · Yahoo Anthro & Archaeo · Google · · The Archaeology Channel · Excerpt, or Link only? · cgk's list of ping lists ·

[Jet Jaguar]

That is cool!

[bmwcyle]

[ApplegateRanch]

Not just the fork, but that shoehorn they mislabeled as a spoon...

[GSP.FAN]

It is useless has no beer bottle opener on it..

[Ken H]

Utensils and a couple of dishes!