I did not realize the full range of artwork on these daggers! :eek:

I picked up a couple that belong in this thread, One cassowary and one from a person. I know little about these cultures so if anyone has any opinions about the engraving styles and their origin please share. As I understand it human bone daggers were taken from the skeleton of an honored ancestor rather than the victims of cannibalism. Such daggers are quite rare, a survey off American museums found 21 out of 499 daggers to be from human bones. The human one has a deep covering of soot with the orange patina of the bone peeking through. I hope this does not offend anyone, we all draw the line somewhere and we all end up as bones

You got me thinking about my bone dagger, as to whether it is a human femur or not. I found this good anatomy tutorial. If you follow it carefully even though my dagger has been carved there is still enough anatomical detail left to assume it is probably the femur of the right leg. The details are in the distal femur. The medial & lateral condyles, medial adductor tubercle and more.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oi0cOvuhsa8

It fits my leg.

May I ask from where you know that one is from human bone?

Regards,
Detlef

I am only sumising from the online femur anatomy lessons.

Cool dagger, Tim! I found this article exploring the difference in daggers from human vs. cssowary material: https://www.livescience.com/62399-hu...e-daggers.html


Cheers, Thor

It's not easy to differentiate between cassowary and human bone, one picture in the link Thor posted shows it good.

Assuming that is the be all knowledge of PNG bone daggers, which I very much doubt. :shrug:

I am as well Tim, but the top of the bones show clearly the anatomy difference. Another point is that human bones are more straight.
Another point is the feel and colour, like said, it's not easy.

Regards,
Detlef