Sickles from the sosnovaya maza hoard: reconstruction of production techniques and possible use based on the data from metric and tracewear analyses

The paper reports on the technological study of finds from the Sosnovaya Maza Hoard (the collection of the State Historical Museum). The study covered 42 sickles, one fragment of a sickle, a sprue channel and one piece of metal and included the analysis of morphological and metric characteristics of the items, statistical analysis of their metric characteristics, tracewear analysis of 42 sickles and the sickle fragment documenting casting traces, waste casting, post-casting treatment and traces of use. We conducted comparative analysis of the traces and singled out groups of sickles cast in one mold. The analysis of these groups with different characteristics and the examination of the sickles of slightly different shapes and size provided an opportunity to clarify the technological process and the use of mass produced models. The statistical processing of the metric characteristics of the sickles, the sprue channel and the piece of metal demonstrated that besides finished items of various quality and their fragments, a piece of metal the weight of which corresponded to the amount of raw material needed to cast one sickle, was also included in the hoard.